War and Peace

You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word.

Al Capone, in War and Peace

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

Winston Churchill, in War and Peace

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.

Victor Hugo, in Success and Failure and War and Peace

If we fight a war and win it with H-bombs, what history will remember is not the ideals we were fighting for but the methods we used to accomplish them. These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan who ruthlessly killed every last inhabitant of Persia.

Hans A. Bethe, in War and Peace

Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted into each others' pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Law and Politics and War and Peace

Cannon: An instrument used in the rectification of national boundaries.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in War and Peace

Coward: one who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.

Ambrose Bierce, in Vice and Virtue and War and Peace

Riot: A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in War and Peace

The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.

Joseph Heller, Catch-22, in War and Peace

War is not nice.

Barbara Bush, in War and Peace

It was a Roman who said it was sweet to die for one's country. The Greeks never said it was sweet to die for anything. They had no vital lies.

Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way, in Life and Death and War and Peace

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Isaac Asimov, Foundation (Salvor Hardin), in War and Peace and Wisdom and Ignorance

To save your world you asked this man to die;
Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?

W. H. Auden, "Epitaph for an Unknown Soldier", in War and Peace

For the first time we have a weapon that nobody has used for thirty years. This gives me great hope for the human race.

Harlan Ellison, in War and Peace

All violence, all that is dreary and repels, is not power, but the absence of power.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in War and Peace

The graveyards are full of indispensable men.

Charles de Gaulle, in War and Peace

Always remember your weapons system was made by the lowest bidder

Unknown, in War and Peace

We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, in War and Peace

War is menstruation envy.

Unknown, in War and Peace

When elephants fight, only the grass gets hurt.

Unknown, in War and Peace