Quotes about World War I

This is a war to end all wars.

This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.

Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades - words, words, but they hold the horror of the world.

We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.

Oh, great warrior? Wars not make one great.

I don't want to be in a battle, but waiting on the edge of one I can't escape is even worse.

They got money for the war, but can't feed the poor.

War is when the young and stupid are tricked by the old and bitter into killing each other.

I was a warrior who dreamed he could bring peace. Sooner or later though, you always have to wake up.

This is how it's done. When people are sittin' on shit that you want, you make 'em your enemy. Then you're justified in taking it.

War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

The stronger we are, the less likely a war is.

A wise king never seeks out war, but he must always be ready for it.

War is young men dying and old men talking. You know this. Ignore the politics.

Sometimes, a truce is the most important part of a war.

Who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.

War. War never changes.

Imagine a king who fights his own battles. Wouldn't that be a sight?

The war is won, but the peace is not.

When the action is over and we look back, we understand both more and less. This much is certain. Before the Doolittle raid, America knew nothing but defeat. After it, there was hope of victory. Japan realized, for the first time, they could lose and began to pull back. America realized, that she would win and surged forward. It was a war, that changed America and the world. Dorie Miller was the first black American to be awarded the Navy Cross. But he would not be the last. He joined a brotherhood of heroes. World War II, for us, began at Pearl Harbor, and 1.177 men still lie entombed in the battleship Arizona. America suffered, but America grew stronger. It was not inevitable. The times tried our souls, and through the trial, we overcame.

In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace we have built in Europe since 1945.

Trump: "North Korea, we're not in a war. We have a good relationship. People don't understand, having a good relationship with leaders of other countries is a good thing."
Biden: "We had a good relationship with Hitler before he invaded Europe. Come on!"

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

But let all strive without failing in faith or in duty, and the dark curse of Hitler will be lifted from our age.

You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terror. Victory however long and hard the road may be. For without victory there is no survival.

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Once upon a time, Russians and Ukranians fought together hand in hand to stop the murderous regime of national socialist Germany.

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.

You will not f*ck with my children's future. You will not destroy the freedoms my grandfather fought two world wars to defend.

You read in any war stories - World War II, whatever - that there are many, many heroes. There are the main stories you always hear about, but there are all these other little people that did things that were very important that we don't always know about.

There's no question in my mind that those people want to have a war. They're determined to be a world power and seem to feel that's the only way to become one. Those storm troopers are awesome. The atmosphere in Berlin - well, I've never sensed such tension.

Everything would get better and better. This was the world I was born in. Suddenly, unexpectedly, one morning in 1914 the whole thing came to an end.

He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.

A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friends.

We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers - we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals.

It is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them.

It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is often brought on by short people. They are so much more energetic and uncompromising than the big fellows.

We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial - I believe we are lost.

We have so much to say, and we shall never say it.

Our knowledge of life is limited to death.

We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.