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

War hath no fury like a non-combatant.

Charles Edward Montague, in War and Peace

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

Benito Mussolini, in War and Peace

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

I am become death, shatterer of worlds.

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

Isn't the best defense always a good attack?

Ovid, in War and Peace

Every soldier is an enemy.

Erno Paasilinna, in War and Peace

A pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood.

George Patton, in War and Peace and Work and Recreation

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

Another victory like that and we are done for.

Pyrrhus, in War and Peace

I once played a sheriff who thought he could do the job without a gun. I was dead in twenty-seven minutes of a thirty minute show.

Ronald Reagan, in War and Peace

War is one of the scourges with which it has pleased God to afflict men.

Cardinal Richelieu, in War and Peace

I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded... I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed... I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, (Chautauqua, New York, August 14, 1936), in War and Peace

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, (inaugural speech, 1944), in War and Peace

Close the book and open your heart.

Nathan Rozenfarb, (on religious conflicts), in War and Peace

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

Bertrand Russell, in War and Peace

When the rich make war it's the poor that die.

Jean-Paul Sartre, in War and Peace and Wealth and Poverty