War Quotes
Two of the best-known lines about war are flagged as misattributed, and both stories are worth knowing.
“In war, truth is the first casualty” is credited to Aeschylus, and sometimes to the US senator Hiram Johnson. It is not in his speeches. The first recorded use Wikiquote found is by Philip Snowden in July 1916, introducing a book by E. D. Morel, and he wrote “it has been said”, so it was probably already going around. Samuel Johnson made the same point in The Idler in 1758, about “the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages”.
“Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing, sooner than of war” is credited to Homer, and it is a misquotation of the Iliad (Book 13). In the original, most men prefer those things to war. It is the Trojans who can never get enough of fighting.
Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.
War without fire is worth nothing—like sausages without mustard.
Man should be trained for war and woman for the recreation of the warrior: all else is folly.
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought.
The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.
It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.
The arms race is a race between nuclear weapons and ourselves.
To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.
Patriots always talk of dying for their country, and never of killing for their country.