QUOTES
Remembrance
Day
With
Remembrance Day in mind, here are some things that great writers
over the centuries have said about war....
Isaiah
2.4
They
shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into
pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
Tao
Te Ching XXX1
Fine
weapons are none the less ill-omened things.... For to think them
lovely means to delight in them, and to delight in them means to
delight in the slaughter of men. And he who delights in the
slaughter of men will never get what he looks for out of those
that dwell under heaven. A host that has slain men is received
with grief and morning; he that has conquered in battle is
received with rites of mourning.
Plato
Phaedo, 66
The
origin of all wars is the pursuit of wealth, and we are forced to
pursue wealth because we live in slavery to the cares of the body.
Niccolo
Machiavelli The Prince, 14 (1532)
A
prince should have no other object or thought, nor acquire skill
in anything, except war, its organisation and its discipline. The
art of war is all that is expected of a ruler.
Roger
Smith in Nuclear Weapons and Christian Conscience 1961
St
Thomas Aquinas laid down three conditions for a just resort to
arms; legitimate authority, just cause, and right intention. To
these was added, by Suarez (d 1617) and Bellarmine (d 1621) a
fourth condition - the right way of conducting a war. A fifth
condition, that there must be a moral certainty that the just
cause will win, came from Cajetan (d 1534)
John
Henry Newman Apologia pro vita sua 1864
There
is such a thing as legitimate warfare: war has its laws; there
are things which may fairly be done, and things which may not be
done.
Leo
Tolstoy What I Believe 1884
Christ
could not imagine people believing in his teaching of humility,
love and universal brotherhood, quietly and deliberately
organising the murder of their brother men.
Christopher
Marlowe Amburlaine the Great 2, 3, 2 (1587)
Blood
is the god of war’s rich livery.
Voltaire,
letter,
It
is said that God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions.
John
Donne Sermons, 12 (1622)
As
peace is of all goodness, so war is an emblem, a hieroglyphic, of
all misery.
Albert
Camus Notebooks, 3 1962
We
used to wonder where war lived, what is was that made it so vile.
And now we realise that we know where it lives, that it is inside
ourselves.
A
great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of
cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. - anon
The
tragedy of war is that it uses man’s best to do man’s
worst. - anon
John
F Kennedy
Mankind
must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. -
Louis
Mumford
Let
men who delight in the cruelties of war remember that their day
is coming.
The
tragedy of war is that it uses man’s best to do man’s
worst. anon
Albert
Barnes
If
there is anything in which earth, more than any other, resembles
hell, it is its wars.
Thomas
Fuller
Hatred
is blind as well as love.
A
great war leaves the country with three armies – an army of
cripples, an army of mourners and an army of thieves. anon
There
is nothing more certain than death, nothing more uncertain than
the time of dying. I will therefore be prepared at all times for
that which may come at any time. - anon
If
men are prepared to die, they are ready for anything. - Joseph
Addison Alexander
Peace
Peace
is the conscious possession of adequate resources. - anon
If
we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more
for us than a golden slipper on a gouty foot. - John Bunyan
Security
is not the absence of danger, but the presence of God, no matter
what the danger. - anon.
Various
observations on life
The
Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction. -
CH Spurgeon
Let
no man think himself the better because he is free from troubles.
It is because God sees him not fit to bear greater. - Richard
Sibbes.
God
sometimes puts his children to bed in the dark. - anon
For
too many Christians, vagueness is the vogue; all they have is the
courage of their confusions. - anon
Blowing
out the other fellow’s candle doesn’t make yours shine
any brighter. - anon
Bishop
David Pytches on church growth: "church growth works on the
biological principle that anything which is healthy gives life to
itself again. So healthy churches ought to procreate and give
health to new churches.”