Quotes From, and About, War

People who are anxious to bring on war don't know what they are bargaining for; they don't see all the horrors that must accompany such an event. --Stonewall Jackson.

Shoot the brave officers, and the cowards will run away and take the men with them. -- Stonewall Jackson

There is no sacrifice that I am not ready to make for the preservation of the Union save that of honor. -- Robert E. Lee

If you surrender, you shall be treated as prisoners of war, but if I have to storm your works, you may expect no quarter. -- Nathan Bedford Forrest

We cannot count on the instinct for survival to protect us against war. —Ronald Reagan

Every citizen [should] be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and the Romans, and must be that of every free state. —Thomas Jefferson

Apparent failure often proves a blessing. -- Robert E. Lee

Civil war, such as you have just passed through, naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings, and, so far as it is in our power to do so, to cultivate feelings toward those with whom we have so long contested, and heretofore so widely but honestly differed. Whatever your responsibilities may be to government, to society or to individuals, meet them like men. -Nathan Bedford Forrest

I believe it to be the duty of everyone to unite in the restoration of the country and the reestablishment of peace and harmony. -- Robert E. Lee

I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.  --Patton (the movie- he expressed the sentiment in real life, but I don't have it to hand)

Nothing is more exhilarating than to be shot at without result. — Winston Churchill

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

German prisoners, asked to assess their various enemies, have said that the British attacked singing, and the French attacked shouting, but that the Americans attacked in silence. They liked better the men who attacked singing or shouting than the grimly silent men who kept coming on stubbornly without a sound. — James Jones

My right is driven in, my center is giving way, the situation is excellent, I attack. — Marshal Ferdinand Foch

Men love war because it allows them to look serious, because it’s the only thing that stops women from laughing at them. —John Fowles

The Navy’s a very gentlemanly business. You fire at the horizon to sink a ship and then you pull people out of the water and say, “Frightfully sorry, old chap.”—William Golding

I am sorry that the movements of the armies cannot keep pace with the expectations of the editors of papers.—Robert E. Lee