Wars have never hurt anybody except the people who die.

––Salvador Dali

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the houses of its children.

––Dwight D. Eisenhower

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

––Mahatma Gandhi

Wars teach us not to love our enemies, but to hate our allies.

––W.L. George

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

––Ernest Hemingway

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.

––Agatha Christie

War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.

––Georges Clemenceau

Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.

––Will Rogers

War does not determine who is right –– only who is left.

––Bertrand Russell

In time of war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the executive magistrate. Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger have always been the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite war, whenever a revolt is apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending have enslaved the people. It is perhaps questionable whether the best concerted system of absolute power in Europe could maintain itself, in a situation where no alarms of external danger could tame the people to the domestic yoke.

––James Madison

The military don’t start wars. Politicians start wars.

––William Westmoreland

(Each week this column features quotations gleaned from the readings and experiences of our editors, reporters, readers, and friends. All are invited to submit quotations for inclusion here. They may be sent to Gleanings, c/o The Newtown Bee, 5 Church Hill Road, Newtown, CT 06470 or emailed to editor@thebee.com.)