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 only certainty in war is human suffering, uncertain costs, unintended consequences.
Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war.
Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war.
The fundamental of war has always been dehumanizing the enemy, seeing him as a soulless animal.
War puts burdens on people without caring whether they are ready for them or not.