top of page
"The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more War quotes

"The doctrine that war is always a greater evil seems to imply a materialist ethic, a belief that death and pain are the greatest evils. But I do not think they are... All men die, and most men miserably. That two soldiers on opposite sides, each believing his own country to be in the right, each at the moment when his selfishness is most in abeyance and his will to sacrifice in the ascendant, should kill [each] other in plain battle seems to me by no means one of the most terrible things in this terrible world."

"Words of war, on a piece of paper. Where peace is torn off, crumbled and toss in the waste basket."

"What is the first thing we did when we took control of Iraq? Protect the oil fields. Remember the administration quote about how the oil would pay for the war."

"In the matter of war, ask this question to yourself and to your own fellow country men: Have you ever seen any politician in your country without legs, without arms, without eyes after war? No! You can't see such a thing because honourless politicians always stay in the safe ports while they send others to the zone of death!"

"Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace."

"Nations never see themselves clearly in the mirror, much less when war preys on their minds."
Explore more quotes by George Orwell

"Do you know why you're here? Shall I tell you why we brought you here? To cure you.To make you sane."

"Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie... a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion."

"A story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes."

"It was a vast, luminous dream in which his whole life seemed to stretch out before him like a landscape on a summer evening after rain."

"For after all, what is there behind, except money? Money for the right kind of education, money for influential friends, money for leisure and peace of mind, money for trips to Italy. Money writes books, money sells them. Give me not righteousness, O lord, give me money, only money."

"I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in ... but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape."

"The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed."

"Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own orthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened."
bottom of page