Archive

Quotes

I have loved war too well.

—Louis XIV, 1715

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

—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1879

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1773

As peace is of all goodness, so war is an emblem, a hieroglyphic, of all misery.

—John Donne, 1622

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

Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer.

—William Cecil, Lord Burghley, c. 1555

You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war. 

—William Randolph Hearst, 1898

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

—Leon Trotsky

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

—Jonathan Swift, 1697

The fear of war is worse than war itself.

—Seneca, c. 50

War is sweet to those who don’t know it.

—Erasmus, 1508

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

—Mao Zedong, 1938