Why War ?

"Strength lies not in defense but in attack."
- Marquis de Acerba

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the
animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your
counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your
chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!" 
--Samuel Adams

"I do not fear an army of lions, if they are led by a lamb.
I do fear an army of sheep, if they are led by a lion."
- Alexander the Great

"The human race is in the best condition when it has the greatest degree of liberty."
- Dante Aligheri

"We make war that we may live in peace."
- Aristotle

"The purpose of all war is peace."
- Saint Augustine, 354-430

"Freedom! No word was ever spoken that held out greater hope,
demanded greater sacrifice, needed more to be nurtured,
blessed more the giver, cursed more its destroyer,
or came closer to being God's will on earth.
And I think that's worth fighting for.
-General Omar N. Bradley, US Army

"War is like love; it always finds a way."
- Bertolt Brecht

"I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie."
- H. Rap Brown, press conference 1967

"Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward.
Freedom will be defended!"
- President George W. Bush, September 11, 2001

"The best defense against terrorism is a strong offensive against terrorists.
That work continues."
- President George W. Bush, October 13, 2001

"These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of America's resolve."
- President George W. Bush

"We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and
confront the worst threats before they emerge."
- President George W. Bush, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, June 2002

"What our enemies have begun, we will finish."
- President George W. Bush, Address to the Nation, 9/11/02

"He who loves not his country can love nothing."
- Lord Byron, 1788-1824

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
- Winston Churchill

"You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory.
Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terrors. Victory, however long and
hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival."
- Winston Churchill

"Nothing is so exhilarating in life as to be shot at with no result."
- Winston Churchill

"The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten."
- Calvin Coolidge, (1872-1933)

"The issue is not war and peace, rather, how best to preserve our freedom."
- General Russell E. Dougherty

"All's fair in love and war"
- Francis Edwards

"I do not believe in vile acquittals, phony appeasements, easy forgiveness.
Even less, in the exploitation or the blackmail of the word Peace.
When peace stands for surrender, fear, loss of dignity and freedom,
it is no longer peace.  It is suicide."
- Oriana Fallaci

"I have never advocated war except as a means of peace."
- Ulysses S. Grant

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
 - Nathan Hale

"There can be no peace but that which is forced by the sword."
- Henry Halleck, nineteenth-century American military writer and inept Civil War general

"I have always regarded the forward edge of battle
as the most exclusive club in the world." 
- Sir Brian Harrock

"Always keep your clothes and your weapons where you can find them in the dark."
- Robert Heinlein

"Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won.
For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war."
- Ernest Miller Hemmingway

"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave..."
- Patrick Henry

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace
--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from
the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!
Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle?
What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear,
or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
Forbid it, Almighty G-d! I know not what course others may take;
but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
- Patrick Henry, March 23,1775

"Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings - - give us that precious jewel, and you may take everything else.
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately,
nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."
- Patrick Henry

"Polemos Pater Panton"
("War is the father of all things")
- Heraclitus, Greek philosopher 500 BC

"Sometimes it is entirely appropriate to kill a fly with a sledge hammer."
- Major Holdridge

"A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for."
- Rear Adm. Grace Murray Hopper

"If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It's much easier to apologize than it is to get permission."
- Rear Adm. Grace Murray Hopper

"To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused."
- John Jay, 1786

"For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so,
a well-organized and armed militia is their best security."
- Thomas Jefferson: message to Congress, Nov. 1808

"From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered
with the blood of tyrants and patriots."
- Thomas Jefferson

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
- Thomas Jefferson

"Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier."
- Samuel Johnson

"I have not yet begun to fight."
- Captain John Paul Jones (aboard the Bon Homme Richard)

"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not
sail fast, for I intend to go in harm's way."
- John Paul Jones (later adopted by the US Navy's Special Boat Units)

"If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"War, if reason prevails, is waged to obtain a better peace than
that which existed prior to the hostilities." 
- Bela K. Kiraly, Hungarian general and American military historian

"If you're in a fair fight, you didn't plan it properly."
- Nick Lappos, Chief R&D Pilot, Sikorsky Aircraft

"We shall meanly lose or nobly save the last hope of earth."
- Abraham Lincoln

"Better a thousand times to die with glory than live without honor. "
- Louis VI of France, 1081-1137

"In war there is no substitute for victory."
- General Douglas MacArthur

"Part of the American dream is to live long and die young.
Only those Americans who are willing to die for their country are fit to live."
- General Douglas MacArthur

"No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation."
- General Douglas MacArthur

"There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others."
- Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), Italian political philosopher, statesman.

"We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle our
flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on
the one hand, of overwhelming power on the other."
- George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff

"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 Stewart Mill

"The morale of the soldier is the greatest single factor in war."
- Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery

"There is a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to pray, but those times have passed away.
There is a time to fight, and that time has now come."
--Peter Muhlenberg, 1776

"The bastards have never been bombed like they're going to be bombed this time."
- Richard M. Nixon, during the 1972 North Vietnamese Easter Offensive

"A riot is a spontaneous outburst. A war is subject to advance planning."
- Richard M. Nixon

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the
night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
- George Orwell

"These are the times that try men’s souls.
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis,
shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now,
deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
- Thomas Paine, 1776

"May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't."
- General George S. Patton Jr.

"I am a soldier, I fight where I am told, and I win where I fight."
- General George S. Patton Jr.

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died.
Rather we should thank God that such men lived."
- General George S. Patton, Jr.

"If I win I can't be stopped! If I lose I shall be dead."
- General George S. Patton, Jr.

"You must do your damdest and win. Remember that is what you live for.
Oh you must! You have got to do something!
Never stop until you have gained the top or a grave."
- General George S. Patton, Jr.

"No arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable
as the will and moral courage of free men and women."
- President Ronald Reagan

"We are not going to tolerate these attacks from outlaw states, run by the strangest collection of misfits,
loony tunes, and squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich."
Ronald Reagan, speaking after terrorist attacks by Shi'ite Muslims, July 1985

"In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it."
- Field Marshall Erwin Rommel

"We will have to want peace, want it enough to pay for it,
before it becomes an accepted rule."
- Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1964

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy,
forget in time that men have died to win them."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The fear of war is worse than war itself."
- Seneca

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste death but once."
- William Shakespeare ("Julius Caesar")

"Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the dogs of War."
- William Shakespeare ("Julius Caesar")

"War is cruelty. There's no use trying to refine it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over."
- William Tecumseh Sherman

"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want."
- General William T. Sherman

"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars
and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."
- Thucydides

"Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free
means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war."
- Thucydides

"The atom bomb was no 'great decision.' . . . It was merely another
powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness."
- President Harry Truman

"War can only be abolished by war, and in order to get rid of
the gun it is necessary to take up the gun."
- Mao Tse-Tung

"When the enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops, harass;
when he tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue."
- Mao Tse-Tung

"Be resolute, fear no sacifice, and surmount every difficulty to win victory."
- Mao Tse-Tung

"You must love soldiers in order to understand them, and
understand them in order to lead them."
- Henri Turenne

"O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;
help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead;
help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;
help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;
help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief;
help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of
their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer
and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail,
imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it.."
- Mark Twain

"Si vis pacem, para bellum" ("Let him who desires peace prepare for war.")
- Flavius Vegetius(375 AD), Roman military strategist (De Rei Militari)

"The pen may be stronger than the sword... but I'd rather have a sword in a dark alley."
- Andrew Warnick

"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."
- George Washington, speech (first annual address to Congress, 1790)

"He who wishes to fight must first count the cost."
"... no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences..."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War

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