Any government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship’s captain has to avoid a shipwreck.”[On Water]

The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.

It’s a far better option to wait a little bit longer than to resort to war. We’ve only been there for seven weeks now. We’re making progress. We’re getting access to the sites that we...

I had to kneel to pull the blade out again, and stayed still afterwards. My heart was a bucking bull in my chest, my hands were slick with sweat, my face itched under drying blood....

When someone has been mean to you, why would you want to be good to them?’ ‘You wouldn’t want to. That’s what makes it hard. You do it anyway. Being good is hard. Much harder...

Sir, you do understand that – officially – I’m not actually a centurion. I haven’t even been assigned to a legion yet.’The general continued writing as he spoke. ‘What was the name?”Corbulo, sir.”Corbulo, you have...

The sergeants are shunted forward and they blink and stare up at Gonzo as he leans on the edge of his giant mixing bowl. MacArthur never addressed his troops from a mixing bowl–not even one...

But to us of a later generation…it is inconceivable that millions of Christian men should have killed and tortured each other, because Napoleon was ambitious, Alexander firm, English policy crafty, and the Duke of Oldenburg...

Are these soldiers really our enemy, or only the worst reflection of our own selves?… We made them. We have to unmake them, not just defeat or kill them.

Risk is the factor of a stratagem measured by what man is powerless to control.

Wer davonläuft kann später kämpfen.

It’s a war,

You’re British, you’re a priest, you’re a medical doctor, you can handle a rifle, you know Morse Code, and most importantly of all, you’re a fucking pain in the ass – so off you go!

It was strange to us that none of these three victims made any attempt to resist the attack. Indeed, not one inhabitant in any of these worlds considered for a moment the possibility of resistance....

They are certainly bracing for war,

Part of the terrible irony of war is that it enlists the best in human nature for purposes of mutual destruction.

Few indeed are those who get a choice. We do as we are told. We stand or fall beside those who were born near to us, who look as we do, who speak the same...

War, my friends, is a thing of beauty.

War: a wretched debasement of all the pretenses of civilization

War is not one-sided. It takes two blades to clash. It matters little who comes out on top, there is still a dead man at the end.

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

The attack came without warning, in the pre-dawn stillness on the day they were due to leave. A series of solid concussions shook the walls and sent Simon scrambling from his bunk. Max thrust a...

We are at war and I am a soldier.

Das Mädchen […] hatte wasserblaue Augen, die so klar waren, als hätten sie noch nie im Leben Leid oder Schrecken gesehen. Und dennoch spiegelte sich darin auch Härte. Was hast du erlebt, dass du dich...

We are at war. War is not on battlefield. It is in boardrooms of companies that control your United States of America.

What is happening? The war was over, wasn’t it?

No honest journalist should be willing to describe himself or herseif as ’embedded.’ To say, ‘I’m an embedded journalist’ is to say, ‘I’m a government Propagandist.

War, not peace, produces virtue. War, not peace, purges vice. War, and preparation for war, call forth all that is noble and honorable in a man. It unites him with his brothers and binds them...

Charlie started crying, in the convulsive, soundless way that men do. “Don’t you understand,” he said after composing himself, “that’s a funeral dirge for the first wave.” We all thought about that, the many lives...

The entire Nazi war machine was only possible because of past, present and future violations of the non aggression principle (achievable only through government).

In the context of war, especially a chaotic war, there is the inevitable targeting of marginal groups. There is a free-roaming sense of violence and a mob mentality.

Never trust the translation or interpretation of something without first trusting its interpreter. One word absent from a sentence can drastically change the true intended meaning of the entire sentence. For instance, if the word...

Let us show that, if the people abandon the republicans, the republicans do not abandon the people.

Trench dirt didn’t always wash out, I am sure.

In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil

It should surprise no one that modern soldiers return home just as conflicted and detached as previous generations. The difference is that in the age of vapid American decadence, their simpler fundamental values are largely...

In the German tongue, in the Polish townScraped flat by the rollerOf wars, wars, wars …

Within Easy Company they had made the best friends they had ever had, or would ever have. They were prepared to die for each other; more important, they were prepared to kill for each other.

Women deserve better than organizations bearing the names of racist rapists funding million dollar campaigns on subway trains. These wealthy middle aged white men tell us what to do with our bodies while they wage...

Bravery without forethought, causes a man to fight blindly and desperately like a mad bull. Such an opponent, must not be encountered with brute force, but may be lured into an ambush and slain.

Be stern in the council-chamber, [Show no weakness, and insist on your plans being ratified by the sovereign.] so that you may control the situation.

These military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand.

Damn the wars but bless the soldier.

Wars damage the civilian society as much as they damage the enemy. Soldiers never get over it.

Of course there is no veneer, the process is one of growth, and primitiveness and civilization are degrees of the same thing. If civilization has an opposite, it is war.

Siempre hay un rey sobre un caballoen las viejas ciudades;lo custodian las fuentes y los niñosy un insólito pájaro.Cuando los veo, pienso que la muertemira de las estatuasarmada hasta los dientes, con sus ojosde bronce...

The battle had been as hideous as you might expect between one side who were simply not afraid to die and another who regarded death as merely a door to the eternal life.

War is not natural. We have to be trained for it, soldiers and citizens alike.

And since a novel has this correspondence to real life, its values are to some extent those of real life. But it is obvious that the values of women differ very often from the values...

We must not conceal from ourselves that no improvement in the present depressing situation is possible without a severe struggle; for the handful of those who are really determined to do something is minute in...