Aphorisms Galore!

War and Peace

74 aphorisms  ·  one comment

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/ghcdyyrg  ·   Fair (973 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

The Devil's Dictionary (paperback)

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

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

tiny.ag/fiog0z7u  ·   Fair (1221 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

The Devil's Dictionary (paperback)

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

tiny.ag/zl0ikbnv  ·   Fair (427 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

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

Ambrose Bierce, in Vice and Virtue and War and Peace

tiny.ag/hrd6aj12  ·   Fair (424 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

A pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood.

George Patton, in War and Peace and Work and Recreation

tiny.ag/db2sazsg  ·   Fair (188 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Today the real test of power is not the capacity to make war but the capacity to prevent it.

Anne O'Hare McCormick, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/8bpf0foj  ·   Fair (370 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

I am become death, shatterer of worlds.

Robert J. Oppenheimer, (quoting the Bhagavadgita after witnessing the first nuclear explosion), in War and Peace

tiny.ag/ifl4hquq  ·   Fair (271 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Isn't the best defense always a good attack?

Ovid, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/826svnit  ·   Fair (818 ratings)  ·  submitted 1998

Every soldier is an enemy.

Erno Paasilinna, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/crjwer6v  ·   Fair (236 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

George Patton, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/9pd1qmsc  ·   Fair (914 ratings)  ·  submitted 1999

One moment on the battlefield is worth a thousand years of peace.

Benito Mussolini, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/jaishdmt  ·   Fair (178 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

War hath no fury like a non-combatant.

Charles Edward Montague, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/ucs9vnd3  ·   Fair (829 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

John Stuart Mill, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/ry32bjva  ·   Fair (823 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Catch-22 (paperback)

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

tiny.ag/ldizacqu  ·   Fair (337 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Foundation (paperback)

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

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

tiny.ag/5mrm7cdg  ·   Fair (3018 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

The Greek Way (paperback)

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

tiny.ag/rkg7iuvl  ·   Fair (230 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

The graveyards are full of indispensable men.

Charles de Gaulle, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/sxpzikiy  ·   Fair (810 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

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

tiny.ag/5i2ylath  ·   Fair (313 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

Groucho Marx, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/4kgkvwyo  ·   Fair (170 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was... an arctic wilderness.

Steve Martin, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/l9ib3pad  ·   Fair (323 ratings)  ·  submitted 1997

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

Groucho Marx, in War and Peace