Quotes on War

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

The civil war across the Middle East between the Shia and the Sunni empowers groups like ISIS and al Qaeda who claim to be the defenders of Sunni rights against Shia attack.

When you have been born in a war like me, living in a war as a child, when you have been in wars as a war correspondent all your life - trust me! You develop a form of fatalism; you are always ready to die.

For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

I grew up in war and saw the United Nations help my country to recover and rebuild. That experience was a big part of what led me to pursue a career in public service. As Secretary-General, I am determined to see this organization deliver tangible, meaningful results that advance peace, development and human rights.

Helplessness induces hopelessness, and history attests that loss of hope and not loss of lives is what decides the issue of war.

Everyone thinks my story should be marked by heroism, but there was no risk to myself. You see, no-one in Prague at that time thought they were going to be at war with England.

We journalists are a bit like vultures, feasting on war, scandal and disaster. Turn on the news, and you see Syrian refugees, Volkswagen corruption, dysfunctional government. Yet that reflects a selection bias in how we report the news: We cover planes that crash, not planes that take off.

Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.

A modern hero is very ambiguous. I went through some very rough times in Czechoslovakia - the occupation by the Germans at the end of the war. We had people going against their tanks with brooms. Are they nuts, or are they heroes?

Democracies are slow to anger and hesitant to go to war: Voters don't want to sacrifice their children for the glory of a selfish king.

I don't support terrorism and never have. As a Sri Lankan that fled war and bombings, my music is the voice of the civilian refugee.

I can't quite remember the exact moment when I became obsessed with writing a play about the seemingly endless war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but I knew that I wanted to somehow tell the stories of the Congolese women caught in the cross-fire.

Journalists dedicate their lives to covering war - they make many personal sacrifices, and it's not something that's gender-based. In a place like Libya where there's heavy fighting, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman.

You have two options when you approach a hostile checkpoint in a war zone, and each is a gamble. The first is to stop and identify yourself as a journalist and hope that you are respected as a neutral observer. The second is to blow past the checkpoint and hope the soldiers guarding it don't open fire on you.

The enduring lesson is war is a disaster. Whoever wins, tremendous loss of life, property - a set back for civilisation.

Sometimes immense things, like war and death and aging, are best seen from the corner of the eye and written of only obliquely, with tremendous lightness.

We cannot allow situations where leaders threaten war on television or on Twitter.

For capitalism, war and peace are business and nothing but business.

I know in war good people can feel obliged for good reasons to do things they would normally object to and recoil from.

The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change.