If you want to learn more about war, you should watch movies, and most importantly, read war quotes. War quotes will enlighten you in many ways and will encourage you to keep going no matter how difficult life is. What’s more, war quotes will help you think critically and can even help you when making certain decisions in this life. And this is why people like war quotes. Read on to learn a compilation of the best war quotes that will enlighten and inspire you.
“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”
― Mark Twain
“Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“War is what happens when language fails.”
― Margaret Atwood
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
― Albert Einstein
“There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
― Voltaire
War Quotes in English
“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril. ”
― Winston S. Churchill
“Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.”
― Herbert Hoover
“A small but noteworthy note. I’ve seen so many young men over the years who think they’re running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“War is sweet to those who have never fought.”
― Jess Rothenberg, The Catastrophic History of You and Me
“If you win, you need not have to explain…If you lose, you should not be there to explain!”
― Adolf Hitler
Life Is War Quotes
“Listen up – there’s no war that will end all wars.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
“We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
“All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.”
― John Steinbeck
“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”
― Howard Zinn
“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”
― Lewis Carroll
“To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Read also: 199+ Lao Tzu Quotes on Life, Love and Happiness
“Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world’s problems?”
― Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages 1985-1995: An Exhibition Catalogue
“If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.”
― Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale
“Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the Gun down.”
― Malcom X
Short War Quotes
“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Le diable et le bon dieu
“The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
“It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.”
― Adlai E. Stevenson
“You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
“They’re in love. fu*k the war.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
“War is over … If you want it.”
― John Lennon
“A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.”
― Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom
“Peace is more than the absence of war. Peace is accord. Harmony.”
― Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone
“How is it possible to have a civil war?”
― George Carlin
War Quotes Ww2
“Do you think it’s possible for an entire nation to be insane?”
― Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
“Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
“It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”
― Aristotle
“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”
― Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
“You do not follow me because I am the strongest. Pax is. You do not follow me because I am the brightest. Mustang is. You follow me because you do not know where you are going. I do.”
― Pierce Brown, Red Rising
“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”
― Ernest Hemingway
World War Quotes
“How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism?”
― Howard Zinn
“In times of war, the law falls silent.
Silent enim leges inter arma”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
“and when all the wars are over, a butterfly will still be beautiful.”
― Ruskin Bond, Scenes from a Writer’s Life
“Veni, vidi, vici. (I came, I saw, I conquered.)”
― Julius Caesar
“The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.”
― George S. Patton Jr.
“To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.”
― Sun Tzu
Winning War Quotes
“There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who’s dead.”
― joseph heller, Catch-22
“The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.”
― Carl Sagan
“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
“No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, The Wisdom Of Eleanor Roosevelt
“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”
― elie wiesel
“The words ‘I Love You’ kill, and resurrect millions, in less than a second.”
― Aberjhani, Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love
“War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.” – Baba”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
“Even the finest sword plunged into salt water will eventually rust.”
― Sun Tzu
“Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“In wars, boy, fools kill other fools for foolish causes”
― Robert Jordan, To the Blight
“Fighting for peace, is like f***ing for chastity”
― Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis
“War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
“When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.”
― sun tzu, The Art of War
“If we don’t end war, war will end us.”
― H.G. Wells
“Religion isn’t the cause of wars, it’s the excuse.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair
“How come we play war and not peace?”
“Too few role models.”
― Bill Watterson
“The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“May God have mercy for my enemies because I won’t.”
― George S. Patton Jr.
“who wishes to fight must first count the cost”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!”
― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
“Rules are for children. This is war, and in war the only crime is to lose.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings
“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
“So the whole war is because we can’t talk to each other.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
“You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been.”
― Aberjhani, Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black
“I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”
― George McGovern
“The whole world can become the enemy when you lose what you love.”
― Kristina McMorris, Bridge of Scarlet Leaves
“The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.”
― Huey P. Newton
“War doesn’t determine who’s right. War determines who remains.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War
“Why do we electrocute men for murdering an individual and then pin a purple heart on them for mass slaughter of someone arbitrarily labeled “enemy?”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
“And if we burn, you burn with us.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
“War does not determine who is right — only who is left.”
― Anonymous
“It is the oldest ironies that are still the most satisfying: man, when preparing for bloody war, will orate loudly and most eloquently in the name of peace.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen
“Of course you know, this means war.”
― Joe Adamson, Bugs Bunny Fifty Years And Only One Grey Hare
“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
― Winston Churchill
“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
“Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’.”
― George Orwell
“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”
― Winston Churchill
“The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse
“People who get up early in the morning cause war, death and famine.”
― Banksy, Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall
“There are perhaps many causes worth dying for, but to me, certainly, there are none worth killing for.”
― Albert Dietrich, Army Gi, Pacifist Co: The World War II Letters of Frank Dietrich and Albert Dietrich
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
― Plato
“She supposed they were imperfections, those marks, but they didn’t feel that way to her; they were a history, cut into his body: the map of a life of endless war.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass
“All wars are civil wars because all men are brothers… Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.”
― Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
― G.K. Chesterton
“Men make war to get attention. All killing is an expression of self-hate.”
― Alice Walker
“One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own terms or fights not at all.”
― Sun Tzu
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“Sisters in battle, I am shield and blade to you. As I breathe, your enemies will know no sanctuary. While I live, your cause is mine.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Wonder Woman: Warbringer
As you have learned from above quotes, you don’t have to be in the battle field to learn more about wars. The above war quotes will enlighten, encourage, and even help you in making important decisions in your life. Remember to refer your friends to read these quotes, and they will appreciate it.