Favorite War Quotes

By Charles Tolleson

“To die for a mystique is the wrong policy.” Andrew J. Bacevich

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” Voltaire

“In democratic armies the desire of advancement is almost universal: it is ardent, tenacious, perpetual; it is strengthened by all other desires and extinguished only with life itself. But it is easy to see that, of all armies in the world, those in which advancement must be slowest in time of peace are the armies of democratic countries. As the number of commissions is naturally limited while the number of competitors is almost unlimited, and as the strict law of equality is over all alike, none can make rapid progress; many can make no progress at all. Thus the desire of advancement is greater and the opportunities of advancement fewer there than elsewhere. All the ambitious spirits of a democratic army are consequently ardently desirous of war, because war makes vacancies and warrants the violation of that law of seniority which is the sole privilege natural to democracy.” –Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book II, Chapter XXII

To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman. George Santayana

“Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he's potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God.” -Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author (1903-1998)

"All men are enamored of decorations...they positively hunger for them." Napoleon

The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature. - Edward Gibbon

At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion. -Edwin Hubbel Chapin, minister and orator (1814-1880)

“Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.” Bertrand Russell

“Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.” Bertrand Russell

"Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarreled with him?" Blaise Pascal

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." -George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)

Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest", but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is. -Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (1917-1986)

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

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