War Quotes

Ah, horrible war, amazing medley of the glorious and the squalid, the pitiful and the sublime, if modern men of light and leading saw your face closer, simple folk would see it hardly ever.

I proceeded to a joint review of the British and American forces. There was a long march past in threes, during which the tune "United States Marines" bit so deeply into my memory that I could not get it out of my head.

The sufferings and impoverishment of peoples might arrest their warfare, the collapse of the defeated might still the cannonade, but their hatreds continue unappeased and their quarrels are still unsettled.

Virtuous motives, trammelled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness. A sincere love of peace is no excuse for muddling hundreds of millions of humble folk into total war. The cheers of weak, well-meaning assemblies soon cease to echo, and their votes soon cease to count. Doom marches on.

So we have had to dispense with the indispensable.

It is much better to be frightened now than to be killed hereafter.

A Hun alive is a war in prospect.

As we have triumphed, so we may be merciful; as we are strong, so we can afford to be generous.

When you borrow money from another country for the sacred purpose of national rehabilitation, it is wrong to squander it upon indulgences.

To urge the preparation of defence is not to assert the imminence of war. On the contrary, if war were imminent, preparations for defence would be too late.

I would rather have a peace-keeping hypocrisy than straightforward, brazen vice, taking the form of unlimited war.

Unless the Rt. Hon. Gentleman changes his policy and methods...he will be as great a curse to this country in time of peace, as he was a squalid nuisance in time of war.

[President Roosevelt] devised the extraordinary measure of assistance called Lend- Lease, which will stand forth as the most unselfish and unsordid financial act of any country in all history.

It is only the continuance of the war and the extraordinary conditions which it imposes and forces upon us all that justifies us in remaining together as a Parliament. I certainly could not take the responsibility of making far-reaching controversial changes which I am not convinced are directly needed for the war effort, without a Parliament refreshed by contact with the electorate.

The House will feel profound sorrow at the fate of the great French nation and people to whom we have been joined so long in war and peace, and whom we have regarded as trustees with ourselves for the progress of a liberal culture and tolerant civilization of Europe.

Once you are so unfortunate as to be drawn into a war, no price is too great to pay for an early and victorious peace.

All the greatest economists, John Stuart Mill at their head, have always spoken of the evils of borrowing for the purposes of war, and have pointed out that as far as possible posterity should be relieved and the cost of what is consumed in the war be met at the time. That is a counsel of perfection, but nobody has ever come nearer to it than the late Chancellor of the Exchequer [Sir Kingsley Wood].

Look at the mistake that Hitler made in not trying invasion in 1940....We had not, at that time, fifty tanks; we had a couple of hundred field guns, some of them brought out of the museums....Think what [the Germans] would do to us if they got here. Think what they would do to us, we who have barred their way to the loot of the whole world, we whom they hate the most because they dread and envy us the most.

We have come to the conclusion that this particular method of warning [church bells] was redundant and not in itself well adapted to the present conditions of war. For myself, I cannot help feeling that anything like a serious invasion would be bound to leak out.

Man-power-and when I say that I intend of course woman-power-is at a pitch of intensity at the present time in this country which was never reached before, not even in the last war, and certainly not in this. I believe our man-power is not only fully extended, but applied on the whole to the best advantage. I have a feeling that the community in this Island is running at a very high level, with a good rhythm, and that if we can only keep our momentum-we cannot increase our pace-that very fact will enable us to outclass our enemies and possibly even our friends.