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

—Jonathan Swift, 1697

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

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

—William Randolph Hearst, 1898

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

—John Donne, 1622

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1773

The fear of war is worse than war itself.

—Seneca, c. 50

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

—Carl Sandburg, 1936

I detest war. It spoils armies.

—Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, c. 1820

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

—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1879

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

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

—Leon Trotsky

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

—Winston Churchill, 1939

A dead enemy always smells good.

—Aulus Vitellius, 69

War to the castles; peace to the cottages.

—Nicolas Chamfort, 1790

I have loved war too well.

—Louis XIV, 1715

Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer.

—William Cecil, Lord Burghley, c. 1555