Aphorisms Galore!

War and Peace

74 aphorisms  ·  one comment

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/crui0h1u  ·  submitted 1997

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

tiny.ag/v6pxskz7  ·  submitted 1999 by Dr Nathan Rozenfarb

Close the book and open your heart.

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

tiny.ag/piklxjab  ·  submitted 1997

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

tiny.ag/ognqp9t4  ·  submitted 1997

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.

Aldous Huxley, in Science and Religion and War and Peace

tiny.ag/qgj3ivvu  ·  submitted 1997

You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and liberty.

Henrik Ibsen, in War and Peace

tiny.ag/1i8zitnu  ·  submitted 1998

I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harms way.

John Paul Jones, 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/2cctxyhg  ·  submitted 1997

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

tiny.ag/fiog0z7u  ·  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/ghcdyyrg  ·  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/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/aij5p9qp  ·  submitted 1997

Another victory like that and we are done for.

Pyrrhus, in 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/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/hrd6aj12  ·  submitted 1997

A pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood.

George Patton, in War and Peace and Work and Recreation

tiny.ag/ldizacqu  ·  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/ry32bjva  ·  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/5mrm7cdg  ·  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/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