Aphorisms Galore!

War and Peace

74 aphorisms  ·  one comment

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/b5zelloy  ·  submitted 1997

Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.

Edward Everett, in War and Peace and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/lgkszg2d  ·  submitted 1997

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin, in Law and Politics and War and Peace

tiny.ag/xm0eggq6  ·  submitted 1997

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.

David Friedman, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/sxpzikiy  ·  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/tldrjftc  ·  submitted 1997

The Devil's Dictionary (paperback)

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

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

tiny.ag/zl0ikbnv  ·  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/pyjfe6sb  ·  submitted 1997

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

tiny.ag/xmilhqgd  ·  submitted 1997

It is impossible to defend perfectly against the attack of those who want to die.

Unknown, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/s7ezrvqx  ·  submitted 1997

It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag.

Unknown, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/aij5p9qp  ·  submitted 1997

Another victory like that and we are done for.

Pyrrhus, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/hrd6aj12  ·  submitted 1997

A pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood.

George Patton, in War and Peace and Work and Recreation

tiny.ag/crjwer6v  ·  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/b5lrmegw  ·  submitted 1997

Katz' Law: Man and nations will act rationally when all other possibilities have been exhausted.

Unknown, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/vykjqus7  ·  submitted 1997

Join the Army: travel to exotic distant lands, meet exciting, unusual people and kill them.

Unknown, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/jaishdmt  ·  submitted 1997

War hath no fury like a non-combatant.

Charles Edward Montague, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/ucs9vnd3  ·  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/9pd1qmsc  ·  submitted 1999

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

Benito Mussolini, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/db2sazsg  ·  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  ·  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/826svnit  ·  submitted 1998

Every soldier is an enemy.

Erno Paasilinna, in War and Peace