War has shaped human history for millennia. It has brought empires to power and torn civilizations apart. But behind every battle is a human story of sacrifice, bravery, sorrow, and the enduring hope for peace.
- “War does not determine who is right — only who is left.” — Bertrand Russell
- “In war, truth is the first casualty.” — Aeschylus
- “Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.” — Herbert Hoover
- “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” — George Santayana
- “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” — Sun Tzu
- “Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Mankind must put an end to war — or war will put an end to mankind.” — John F. Kennedy
- “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” — Howard Zinn
- “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.” — Jeannette Rankin
- “War is what happens when language fails.” — Margaret Atwood
- “I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I hate war.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
- “No one wins in a war. Some just lose less.” — Anonymous soldier
- “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” — G.K. Chesterton
- “War is hell.” — William Tecumseh Sherman
- “Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.” — David Hackworth
- “Peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
- “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” — Jimi Hendrix
- “An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind.” — Mahatma Gandhi
- “It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.” — Aristotle
- “The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.” — Norman Schwarzkopf
- “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies… a theft from those who hunger and are not fed.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower
- “All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.” — John Steinbeck
- “War makes monsters of men.” — Patrick Ness
- “The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.” — Herodotus
- “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.” — George Washington
- “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” — George Orwell, 1984
- “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” — Carl von Clausewitz
- “History is written by the victors.” — Winston Churchill
- “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” — Albert Einstein
- “Come you masters of war / You that build all the guns…” — Bob Dylan
- “We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men…” — T.S. Eliot
- “Sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country.” — Wilfred Owen (ironically critiquing the idea)
- “The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.” — Czesław Miłosz
- “War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.” — Thomas Mann
- “Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.” — Oscar Wilde
- “Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.” — Mahatma Gandhi
- “He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt.” — Albert Einstein
- “If we don’t end war, war will end us.” — H.G. Wells
- “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” — Albert Einstein
War has been glorified in stories, films, and history books but these quotes remind us that its true legacy is often suffering, destruction, and irreversible loss. In reading and reflecting on the voices of those who’ve lived through war or imagined better futures, we move closer to valuing peace, diplomacy, and the shared humanity that war so often divides.
