Quotes on War

War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.

All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones. In my opinion, there never was a good war or a bad peace. When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?

On the night that the Second World war was declared, there were crowds in the street. It was a summer's night and there was a blackout. On every side you heard people crying: 'Look at the moon!' The moon had been there every minute of their lives and they'd never seen it.

It wasn't long after I began writing Star Wars that I realized the story was more than a single film could hold. As the saga of the Skywalkers and Jedi Knights unfolded, I began to see it as a tale that could take at least nine films to tell - three trilogies - and I realized, in making my way through the back story and after story, that I was really setting out to make the middle story.

In this cry of pain the inner consciousness of the people seems to lay itself bare for an instant, and to reveal the mood of beings who feel their isolation in the face of a universe that wars on them with winds and seas.

It is well known that in war, the first casualty is truth - that during any war truth is forsaken for propaganda.

The great thing about being a print journalist is that you are permitted to duck. Cameramen get killed while the writers are flat on the floor. A war correspondent for the BBC dedicated his memoir to 50 fallen colleagues, and I guarantee you they were all taking pictures. I am only alive because I am such a chicken.

Real people speak in my books about the main events of the age, such as the war, the Chernobyl disaster, and the downfall of a great empire.

If the amount of money going into the war economy were invested in landscape restoration, we would be in a far more positive position. It may get a little dire before we pull together, but I think when the prosperous nations, and in particular the U.S., realize they're wrecking their own kids' lives, there will be a mass change in value.

Let it never be said by future generations that indifference, cynicism or selfishness made us fail to live up to the ideals of humanism which the Nobel Peace Prize encapsulates. Let the strivings of us all, prove Martin Luther King Jr. to have been correct, when he said that humanity can no longer be tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war.

The test of Christian character should be that a man is a joy-bearing agent to the world.

Their quarrel was no more surprising than are most quarrels — inevitable at the time, incredible afterwards.

Where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal anarchy amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand; For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce, Strive here for mast'ry.

When I was a young man, I was poor. In a war with other nations, I was in eighty-seven fights. There I received my name and was made Chief of my nation. But now I am old and am for peace.

Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us.

Some of my ancestors fought in the American Revolution. A few more wore red coats, a few wore blue coats, and the rest wore no coats at all. We never did figure out who won that war.

The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality.… If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.

The book is second only to the wheel as the best piece of technology human beings have ever invented. A book symbolises the whole intellectual history of mankind; it's the greatest weapon ever devised in the war against stupidity.

There's so much more to tell about Africa than the usual stories about war, famine and disease.

When I was born in 1942, World War II was still going. And I began to realize when I became a young adult that if we don't teach our kids a better way of relating to their fellow human beings, the very future of humanity on the planet is in jeopardy.

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.