War is the failure of every other option. These quotes do not glorify conflict — they examine its causes, costs, and consequences through the eyes of soldiers, leaders, pacifists, and survivors who understand what is really at stake.
“I don't feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances, but they wouldn't do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched.”
“A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.”
“War is never fatal but always lost. Always lost.”
“It is forbidden to kill therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
“The war is coming to the streets of America and if you are not keeping and bearing and practicing with your arms then you will be helpless and you will be the victim of evil.”
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
“There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.”
“I'm a lad of the '60s. I started a magazine to try and end the Vietnam war, but it was a number of years before I had the profile, the financial resources and the time to do more.”
“This is not Johnson's war. This is America's war. If I drop dead tomorrow, this war will still be with you.”
“To win this war, we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.”
“It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.”
“It has too often been too easy for rulers and governments to incite man to war.”
“I'm actually reading 'World War Z' again! It's incredibly realistic and it's written as an oral history through interviews with different characters. Max Brooks wrote this book in so many different voices. There are about forty or so. It's incredible. When I finish 'World War Z' I'm going to go back and start again on the 'Game of Thrones' series.”
“It is not only the living who are killed in war.”
“New terms used like, 'overseas contingency operation' instead of the word 'war' - that reflects a worldview that is out of touch with the enemy that we face. We can't spin our way out of this threat.”
“Even under the best of circumstances, the road back from war is difficult.”