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.
The armies most successful in war are those in which every combatant has a clear conscience.
For a flying foe
Discreet and provident conquerors build up
A bridge of gold.
Black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart.
The children born of thee are sword and fire,
Red ruin, and the breaking up of law.
To be prepared for war is onto the most effectual means of preserving peace.
"Farewell, friend. I was a thousand times more evil than thou!"
By this sword, he that makes the first thrust, I’ll kill him; by this sword, I will.
I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin.
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolour'd by this place of peace?
For to me every sort of peace with the citizens seemed to be of more service than civil war.