Sermon quotes on war
Augustine of Hippo
The desire for harming, the cruelty of revenge, the restless and implacable mind, the savageness of revolting, the lust for dominating, and similar things – these are what are justly blamed in wars. Often, so that such things might also be justly punished, certain wars that must be waged against the violence of those resisting are commanded by God or some other legitimate ruler and are undertaken by the good.
Against Faustas the Manichean
Margaret Atwood
War is what happens when language fails.
The Robber Bride (1993)
G.K. Chesterton
The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.
Frank Herbert
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.
Chapterhouse: Dune (1985)
C.S. Lewis
And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”
Mere Christianity (1952)
Martin Luther
War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity; it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.
Table Talk (1566)
J.R.R. Tolkien
The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.
The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)
J.R.R. Tolkien
War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2)
Mark Twain (attributed)
God created war so that Americans would learn geography.
Carl von Clausewitz
War is merely the continuation of politics by other means.
On War (1832)
G.K. Chesterton
Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.
Otto Von Bismark
The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions . . . but by iron and blood.
Speech to Prussian Diet, 30 Sept. 1862.
Amy Carmichael
It is more important that you should know about the reverses than about the successes of the war. We shall have all eternity to celebrate the victories, but we have only the few hours before sunset in which to win them. We are not winning them as we should, because the fact of the reverses is so little realized, and the needed reinforcements are not forthcoming, as they would be in the position were thoroughly understood…So we have tried to tell you the truth the uninteresting, unromantic truth.
Things as They Are: Mission Work in Southern India (1903)
Omar Bradley
We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount…Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
Speech on Armistice Day, Boston, Mass., 11 Nov. 1948
Heraclitus
War is the father of all and the king of all.
Martin Luther
“Suppose my Lord were wrong in going to war.” I reply: If you know for sure that he is wrong then you should fear God rather than men… and you should neither fight nor serve, for you cannot have a good conscience before God.
Dutch Prisoner
I’d never lived more intensely than during those war years. You were constantly filled with fear, but because of that anxiety you could become deliriously happy about the most ludicrous things. After the war, I often missed this intensity.
Japanese Concentration Camp During World War II
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