The masks have now been taken off, showing only the face of war.
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.
If China revives again we could not wage war with her by ourselves.
It is dreadful to be condemned to inactivity in this war which I prepared and initiated.
“This means war. And who suffers most if powerful families go to war?”
“Everyone else but them.”
We need to draw the right lessons from the recent global challenges, wars and crises.
The times of the peace dividend following the end of the Cold War are over.
And after we think about it, then there will be nuclear war.
The only war worse than one that’s intended is one that’s unintended.
To win, you've got to plan carefully and then make war with the speed of lightning.
"It's us, not the gods, who created war. It's us, we human beings, who can kill it."