War and Peace

This day is called the feast of Crispian:

 

War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms.

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.

It seemed that out of battle I escaped

Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry, The subject of it is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. All a poet can do is warn. 1

Peace hath her victories

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.

The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.

Let us sleep now.

The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;

The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.

We shall not flag or fail. 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.

The objections which have been broughtagainst a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.

A plague o’ both your houses!

 

Soldiers are citizens of death’s gray land.

What passing bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons.

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words, it is war minus the shooting.

When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die.

[ Groucho Marx speaking :] Come, Kapellmeister, let the violas throb! My regiment leaves at dawn.

We’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all!

 

And when the war is done and youth stone dead I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

Whatever hope is yours,