War Preparation Quotes

“This protracted war will pass through three stages. The first stage covers the period of the enemy's strategic offensive and our strategic defensive. The second stage will be the period of the enemy's strategic consolidation and our preparation for the counter-offensive. The third stage will be the period of our strategic counter-offensive and the enemy's strategic retreat.”

— Mao Tse-tung

“I had a son in 1976. When I went to Europe, I met an Italian and we became friends. We would talk about what we would tell our families to do if the balloon went up. The conversation
strange and perhaps pathological as it was
bound us together. It was not war, it was not peace, but it was a place in the mind where the preparation for war and the anxiety that it generated created strange forms, such as plans for the movement of children in order to avoid a nuclear holocaust.”

— George Friedman

“Baptism was recruitment into that supernatural holy war that reiterated the waters of the Flood cleansing unholiness and evil from the individual's life, in preparation for a new messianic world. But in the case of Jesus, it was much more. When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit had come upon him, which was foretold by Isaiah the prophet, Behold my Servant, whom I uphold, my Chosen One, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.”

— Brian Godawa

“War and the fear of war have always been considered the main incentives to technological extension of our bodies. Indeed, Lewis Mumford, in his The City in History, considers the walled city itself an extension of our skins, as much as housing and clothing. More even than the preparation for war, the aftermath of invasion is a rich technological period; because the subject culture has to adjust all its sense ratios to accommodate the impact of the invading culture.”

— Marshall McLuhan

“Peace?' said Vetinari. 'Ah, yes, defined as period of time to allow for preparation for the next war.”

— Terry Pratchett

“It is also a near-perfect summary of what happens in the void of war and how history is more often than not a messy combination of intention, courage, preparation, and chance. If”

— Robert M. Edsel

“FOR MOST OF human history, education was job training. Hunters, farmers, and warriors taught the young to hunt, farm, and fight. Children of the ruling class received instruction in the arts of war and governance, but this too was intended first and foremost as preparation for the roles they would assume later in society, not for any broader purpose. All that began to change twenty-five hundred years ago in ancient Greece.”

— Fareed Zakaria

“Where resides the comforting knowledge of history's vast, cyclical sweep, the ebb and flow of wars and peace? Peace is the time of waiting for war. A time of preparation, or a time of willful ignorance, blind, blinkered and prattling behind secure walls.”

— Steven Erikson

“In almost every country there are elements of opinion which would welcome such a conclusion because they wish to return to the politics of the balance of power, unrestricted and unregulated armaments, international anarchy, and preparation for war.”

— Arthur Henderson

“The history of ancient Greece showed that, in a democracy, emotion dominates reason to a greater extent than in any other political system, thus giving freer rein to the passions which sweep a state into war and prevent it getting out-at any point short of the exhaustion and destruction of one or other of the opposing sides. Democracy is a system which puts a brake on preparation for war, aggressive or defensive, but it is not one that conduces to the limitation of warfare or the prospects of a good peace. No political system more easily becomes out of control when passions are aroused. These defects have been multiplied in modern democracies, since their great extension of size and their vast electorate produce a much larger volume of emotional pressure.”

— B.H. Liddell Hart

“In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war.”

— Robert M. La Follette

“The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the moderation of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant preparation for war;”

— Edward Gibbon

“It is a grave matter to enter a war, without adequate military preparation; it may prove fatal to come into peace, without moral and religious preparation.”

— Louis Finkelstein

“And then fourth, we have that essential group of people who track programs and budgets to ensure that they align with the needs of preparation and warning, counterintelligence and support to the operational war fighter.”

— Stephen Cambone

“In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war.”

— Horace

“The Middle East is more angry than ever. I'm afraid that the sort of deceit on the route to war was linked to the lack of preparation for afterwards and the chaos and suffering that continuous - so it won't go away will it?”

— Clare Short

“Preparation for war is a constant stimulus to suspicion and ill will.”

— James Monroe

“There is no lie in war or preparation of war that can't be defended.”

— Don DeLillo

“Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operations. This Administration has overextended our military.”

— Barack Obama

“There is no shorter road to defeat than by entering a war with inadequate preparation.”

— Charles Lindbergh

“War, not peace, produces virtue. War, not peace, purges vice. War, and preparation for war, call forth all that is noble and honorable in a man. It unites him with his brothers and binds them in selfless love, eradicating in the crucible of necessity all which is base and ignoble. There in the holy mill of murder the meanest of men may seek and find that part of himself, concealed beneath the corrupt, which shines forth brilliant and virtuous, worthy of honor before the gods. Do not despise war, my young friend, nor delude yourself that mercy and compassion are virtues superior to andreia, to manly valor.”

— Steven Pressfield

“We can't ignore the fact that ahead of us is a great war and this war is going to need significant preparation.”

— Ahad Ha'am

“This is the true lesson of our history: war, preparation for war, and foreign military interventions have served for the most part not to protect us, as we are constantly told, but rather to sap our economic vitality and undermine our civil and economic liberties.”

— Robert Higgs

“Instead of scrambling for security in national victory and domination, in preparation for war and military aggression, we must relearn the values of cooperation and sharing, of nonviolence and support.”

— Marva Dawn

“Their notion of training was to march the men up and down in parades and reviews: these were nice to look at and gave them the impression of military discipline and precision, but as a preparation for a modern war they had no value whatsoever.”

— Orlando Figes

“War, and the preparation for war, are the two greatest obstacles to human progress, fostering a vicious cycle of arms buildups, violence and poverty.”

— Oscar Arias

“Watch every tendency towards militarism, for we know that preparation for war leads to war.”

— William Mulock

“To prevent wars, people must criticize, in their own country, the abuses that occur in their own country. The role taboos play in the preparation for war. The number of shameful secrets keeps growing incessantly, boundlessly. How meaningless all censorship taboos become, and how meaningless the consequences for overstepping them, when your life is in danger.”

— Christa Wolf

“I appeal to all men and women, whether they be eminent or humble, to declare that they will refuse to give any further assistance to war or the preparation of war.”

— Albert Einstein

“I have every confidence in the ultimate success of our joint cause; but success in modern war requires something more than courage and a willingness to die: it requires careful preparation.”

— Douglas MacArthur

“A certain degree of preparation for war ... affords also the best security for the continuance of peace.”

— James Madison

“War, which perpetuates itself under the form of preparation for war, has once and for all given the State an important role in production.”

— Simone Weil

“I abhor unjust war. I abhor injustice and bullying by the strong at the expense of the weak, whether among nations or individuals. I abhor violence and bloodshed. I believe that war should never be resorted to when, or so long as, it is honorably possible to avoid it. I respect all men and women who from high motives and with sanity and self-respect do all they can to avert war. I advocate preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should never advocate war unless it were the only alternative to dishonor.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

“The firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of the defenses of war.”

— John Quincy Adams

“The cause of war is preparation for war.”

— W.E.B. Du Bois

“The insight that peace is the end of war, and that therefore a war is the preparation for peace, is at least as old as Aristotle, and the pretense that the aim of an armament race is to guard the peace is even older, namely as old as the discovery of propaganda lies.”

— Hannah Arendt

“It is wise statesmanship which suggests that in time of peace we must prepare for war, and it is no less a wise benevolence that makes preparation in the hour of peace for assuaging the ills that are sure to accompany war.”

— Clara Barton

“Proper turkey preparation is critical. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more Americans die every year from eating improperly cooked turkey than were killed in the entire Peloponnesian War. This is because turkey can contain salmonella, which are tiny bacteria that, if they get in your bloodstream, develop into full-grown salmon, which could come leaping out of your mouth during an important business presentation.”

— Dave Barry