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Wars begin through greed and vanity and are continued through the insanity of nationalism in which the boundaries of a land replace God.

— Billy Collins Interview with Kritya: In the Name of Poetry (2004)

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War

More quotes by Billy Collins

You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and — somehow — the wine.

But tonight, the lion of contentment
has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest.

The complexity of women's undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

It is important for the poet not to be emotional because you cannot see the world clearly with tears in your eyes.

Interview with Kritya: In the Name of Poetry (2004)

But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her,
barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window
in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor.
She will look in at me with her thin arms extended,
offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.

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All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

Albert Einstein Moral Decay (1937)

The last half of the 20th century will seem like a wild party for rich kids, compared to what's coming now.

Hunter S. Thompson

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

George Santayana Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)

Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.

Ulysses S. Grant Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Billy Collins (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.