War and Peace

It seemed that out of battle I escaped

Whatever hope is yours,

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Was it for this the clay grew tall?

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

All a poet can do today is warn.

My subject is War, and the pity of War.

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

Serious sport … is war minus the shooting.

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

The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone,

Peace hath her victories

Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him

For what can war, but endless war still breed?

Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale … from hell’s heart I stab at thee.

A war can perhaps be won single-handedly.

So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘The judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union … If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read.