100 Inspiring War Quotes That Reveal the Art and Wisdom of Conflict

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete."

- Sun Tzu

"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."

- Sun Tzu

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

- Sun Tzu

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

- Sun Tzu

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt."

- Sun Tzu

"He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight."

- Sun Tzu

"Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical."

- Sun Tzu

"The consummate leader cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it is in his power to control success."

- Sun Tzu

"To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."

- Sun Tzu

"If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even though the ruler forbid it; if fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler's bidding."

- Sun Tzu

"If you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete."

- Sun Tzu

"Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death."

- Sun Tzu

"A leader leads by example not by force."

- Sun Tzu

"The general who advances without coveting fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do good service for his sovereign, is the jewel of the kingdom."

- Sun Tzu

"The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand."

- Sun Tzu

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."

- Sun Tzu

"To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."

- Sun Tzu

"Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."

- Sun Tzu

"The greatest victory is that which requires no battle."

- Sun Tzu

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win"

- Sun Tzu

"The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected."

- Sun Tzu

"So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak."

- Sun Tzu

"Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak."

- Sun Tzu

"He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious."

- Sun Tzu

"believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."

- Sun Tzu

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"The pioneers of a warless world are the young men (and women) who refuse military service."

- Albert Einstein

"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction….The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Someday theyll give a war and nobody will come."

- Carl Sandburg

"The way of peace is the way of love."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected ."

- Sun Tzu

"War will stop when we no longer praise it, or give it any attention at all. Peace will come wherever it is sincerely invited."

- Alice Walker

"Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory: 1 He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. 2 He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. 3 He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. 4 He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. 5 He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign."

- Sun Tzu

"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."

- John F. Kennedy

"The experienced soldier, once in motion, is never bewildered; once he has broken camp, he is never at a loss."

- Sun Tzu

"Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline; simulated fear postulates courage; simulated weakness postulates strength."

- Sun Tzu

"Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted."

- Sun Tzu

"The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim."

- Sun Tzu

"All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved."

- Sun Tzu

"Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances."

- Sun Tzu

"He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain."

- Sun Tzu

"The difficulty of tactical maneuvering consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain."

- Sun Tzu

"No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique."

- Sun Tzu

"What enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge."

- Sun Tzu

"Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him."

- Sun Tzu

"If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him."

- Sun Tzu

"Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory."

- Sun Tzu

"Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated."

- Sun Tzu

"You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended."

- Sun Tzu

"O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands."

- Sun Tzu

"Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing."

- Sun Tzu

"Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy's purpose."

- Sun Tzu

"In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them."

- Sun Tzu

"Carefully compare the opposing army with your own, so that you may know where strength is superabundant and where it is deficient."

- Sun Tzu

"To take a long and circuitous route, after enticing the enemy out of the way, and though starting after him, to contrive to reach the goal before him, shows knowledge of the artifice of deviation."

- Sun Tzu

"Let your rapidity be that of the wind, your compactness that of the forest."

- Sun Tzu

"In raiding and plundering be like fire, in immovability like a mountain."

- Sun Tzu

"Place your army in deadly peril, and it will survive; plunge it into desperate straits, and it will come off in safety."

- Sun Tzu

"Forestall your opponent by seizing what he holds dear, and subtly contrive to time his arrival on the ground."

- Sun Tzu

"Walk in the path defined by rule, and accommodate yourself to the enemy until you can fight a decisive battle."

- Sun Tzu

"At first, then, exhibit the coyness of a maiden, until the enemy gives you an opening; afterwards emulate the rapidity of a running hare, and it will be too late for the enemy to oppose you."

- Sun Tzu

"If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are."

- Sun Tzu

"Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed."

- UNESCO Charter

"The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin."

- Sun Tzu

"More than just an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"War cannot be humanized. It can only be abolished."

- Albert Einstein

"I hope that mankind will at length, as they call themselves reasonable creatures, have reason and sense enough to settle their differences without cutting throats; for in my opinion there never was a good war, or a bad peace."

- Benjamin Franklin

"I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask: Mother, what was war?"

- Eve Merriam

"My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth."

- George Washington

"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."

- Mohandas Gandhi

"In modern war there is no such thing as victor and vanquished. There is only a loser, and the loser is mankind."

- U Thant

"It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on."

- Sun Tzu

"All war is based on deception."

- Sun Tzu

"Our schoolbooks glorify war and conceal its horrors. They indoctrinate children with hatred. I would teach peace rather than war, love rather than hate."

- Albert Einstein

"If the enemy leaves a door open, you must rush in."

- Sun Tzu

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."

- E. F. Schumacher

"Energy may be likened to the bending of a crossbow; decision, to the releasing of the trigger."

- Sun Tzu

"If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant."

- Sun Tzu

"In war, practice dissimulation, and you will succeed."

- Sun Tzu

"Maneuvering with an army is advantageous; with an undisciplined multitude, most dangerous."

- Sun Tzu

"The control of a large force is the same principle as the control of a few men: it is merely a question of dividing up their numbers."

- Sun Tzu

"The clever combatant looks to the effect of combined energy, and does not require too much from individuals."

- Sun Tzu

"Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible attacks; numerical strength, from compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us."

- Sun Tzu

"Knowing the place and the time of the coming battle, we may concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight."

- Sun Tzu

"Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."

- Sun Tzu

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

- Smedley Butler

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives, that it is inside ourselves."

- Albert Camus

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."

- Howard Zinn

"When you go to war, both sides lose totally."

- Yoko Ono

"Violence produces only something resembling justice, but it distances people from the possibility of living justly, without violence."

- Leo Tolstoy

"War stirs in mens hearts the mud of their worst instincts. It puts a premium on violence, nourishes hatred, and gives free rein to cupidity. It crushes the weak, exalts the unworthy, and bolsters tyranny. Time and time again it has destroyed all ordered living, devastated hope, and put the prophets to death."

- Charles DeGaulle

"There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it."

- Havelock Ellis

"The belief that we some day shall be able to prevent war is to me one with the belief in the possibility of making humanity really human."

- Ellen Key

"The only way to abolish war is to make peace heroic."

- James Sidney Hinton

"The pacifists task today is to find a method of helping and healing which provides a revolutionary constructive substitute for war."

- Vera Brittain

"To destroy governmental violence, only one thing is needed: It is that people should understand that the feeling of patriotism, which alone supports that instrument of violence, is a rude, harmful, disgraceful, and bad feeling, and, above all, is immoral."

- Leo Tolstoy

"The way to achieve peace is not to be pacifist but to be anti-violent. To be pro-peace, you have to work for justice."

- Jim Wallis

"We can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods."

- Virginia Woolf

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."

- Albert Einstein

"Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots."

- Sun Tzu

"What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease."

- Sun Tzu

"The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent."

- Sun Tzu

"Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate."

- Sun Tzu

"When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them. When settled, make them move."

- Sun Tzu

"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding."

- Albert Einstein

"There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare."

- Sun Tzu

"Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate."

- Sun Tzu

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain."

- Sun Tzu

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?"

- Mahatma Gandhi

"I really see no other solution than to turn inwards and to root out all the rottenness there. I no longer believe that we can change anything in the world until we first change ourselves. And that seems to me the only lesson to be learned from this war."

- Etty Hillesum

"If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies."

- Moshe Dayan

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good man do nothing."

- Edmund Burke

"Nuclear war is inevitable, says the pessimists; Nuclear war is impossible, says the optimists; Nuclear war is inevitable unless we make it impossible, says the realists."

- Sydney J. Harris

"The law of violence is not a law, but a simple fact which can only be a law when it does not meet with protest and opposition. It is like the cold, darkness and weight, which people had to put up with until recently when warmth, illumination and leverage were discovered."

- Leo Tolstoy

"In this war  as in others  I am less interested in honoring the dead than in preventing the dead."

- Butler Shaffer

"War would end if the dead could return."

- Stanley Baldwin

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

- Albert Einstein

"War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."

- Voltaire

"Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die."

- Herbert Hoover

"All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal."

- John Steinbeck

"If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are."

- Kristin Hannah

"War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who remains."

- R.F. Kuang

"Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons. And they will follow you into the deepest valley."

- Sun Tzu

"When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard."

- Sun Tzu

"who wishes to fight must first count the cost"

- Sun Tzu

"One may know how to conquer without being able to do it."

- Sun Tzu

"If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war."

- Leo Tolstoy

"There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous."

- Neil Gaiman

"War is the continuation of politics by other means."

- Carl von Clausewitz

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

- Isaac Asimov

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

- Rafiki

"The story of the human race is characterized by efforts to get along much more than by violent disputes, although its the latter that make the history books. Violence is actually exceptional. The human race has survived because of cooperation, not aggression."

- Gerard A. Vanderhaar

"One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one."

- Agatha Christie

"There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever."

- Thomas A. Edison

"Either war is obsolete or men are."

- Buckminster Fuller

"War is, at first, the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isnt any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyones being worse off."

- Karl Kraus

"Very few people chose war. They chose selfishness and the result was war. Each of us, individually and nationally, must choose: total love or total war."

- Dave Dellinger

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

- Voltaire

"The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure."

- Lyndon Johnson

"During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism."

- Howard Thurman

"The most violent element in society is ignorance."

- Emma Goldman

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history."

- George Orwell

"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it."

- George Orwell

"Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the Gun down."

- Malcolm X

"God created war so that Americans would learn geography."

- Mark Twain

"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality."

- The Cheshire Cat

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

- George Orwell

"He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature."

- Madeline Miller

"If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree."

- Michael Crichton

"The two decisive powers of the government with respect to war are the power to conscript and the power to tax."

- A.J. Muste

"War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost limits."

- Carl von Clausewitz

"War is sweet to those who havent tasted it."

- Erasmus of Rotterdam

"War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetrated on the community of man."

- Alfred Adler

"There is but one evil, war. All the other proclaimed evils such as hate, greed, discrimination, and jealousy are only sub-categories of it."

- José Barreiro

"War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace."

- Norman Cousins

"War itself is the enemy of the human race."

- Howard Zinn

"Wars are not acts of God. They are caused by man, by man-made institutions, by the way in which man has organized his society."

- Frederick Moore Vinson

"War is only an invention, not a biological necessity."

- Margaret Mead

"If you win, you need not have to explain...If you lose, you should not be there to explain!"

- Adolf Hitler

"All warfare is based on deception."

"Forgiveness is not a gift to the person who has wronged you, but to yourself."

"War does not determine who is right  only who is left."