War and Peace

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in War and Peace

I always say that, next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.

The Duke of Wellington, in War and Peace

To jaw-jaw is better than to war-war.

Winston Churchill, (on Korean War negotiations), 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

When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.

Winston Churchill, (on formal declarations of war), in War and Peace

I prefer the most unjust peace to the most righteous war.

Cicero, in 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

War is not nice.

Barbara Bush, in War and Peace

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

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

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

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 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

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

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