Archive

Quotes

Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer.

—William Cecil, Lord Burghley, c. 1555

A dead enemy always smells good.

—Aulus Vitellius, 69

I went [to war] because I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done.

—Louisa May Alcott, 1863

Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.

—Carl Sandburg, 1936

Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.

—Winston Churchill, 1939

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. War is hell.

—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1879

War is the child of pride, and pride the daughter of riches.

—Jonathan Swift, 1697

I have loved war too well.

—Louis XIV, 1715

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

—Leon Trotsky

War to the castles; peace to the cottages.

—Nicolas Chamfort, 1790

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

—Mao Zedong, 1938

The fear of war is worse than war itself.

—Seneca, c. 50

I detest war. It spoils armies.

—Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, c. 1820