Warfare Quotes

“Because he that lacks knowledge about his enemy will find himself sitting in total defeat where bondage and misery reigns and rules.”
― John Ramirez, Fire Prayers: Building Arsenals That Destroy Satanic Kingdoms

“The ministry of violence is a spiritual conflict. It’s a ministry that every child of God cannot afford to sweep under the rug. If they do, they will suffer spiritual loss, and will never be more than conquerors in Christ Jesus.”
― John Ramirez, Fire Prayers: Building Arsenals That Destroy Satanic Kingdoms

“Renunciation is the spiritual scissors or act that cuts things to the root out of your life, in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It’s time to shame the devil and make Jesus Christ proud.”
― John Ramirez, Fire Prayers: Building Arsenals That Destroy Satanic Kingdoms

“Information affects the very fabric of society. It could be the primary weapon in the future of war, and it could determine the future of humanity.”
― Roger Spitz, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume II - Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty

“Why do people glorify war?
Do they not see the stench and gore?
All who relish destruction are human no more!”
― Mohamad Jebara, The Illustrious Garden

“A recurring theme of this book is that money spent on deterrence is seldom wasted, especially when considered against the costs incurred when the deterrence fails.”
― David Petraeus, Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine

“I have never really understood our gene-father's obsession with martial glory. It always seemed to me more efficient to simply eradicate our foes from orbit. Pound the earth flat and build over the ashes.

And if they dig in?

There are ways. Saboteurs, chemical weapons - there are hundreds of ways of dismantling a world and its population that do not involve orbital insertions and glorious advances into the teeth of enemy fire. Perhaps I overestimate the intelligence of our species. Perhaps we are little more than psychopathic apes, driven to fashion clubs and smash out the brains of our closest neighbours.

And here I thought you were the clever one. I figured that out the day of my culling, when my family forced my cousins and me to fight for the honour of joining the Third. War as you describe it would be little more than pest control. What is there for the gods to feed on? Where is the desire for victory, the savagery, the hope and despair? Where is the entertainment?

I believe you have made my point for me.

No, you are not listening. On my pilgrimage, I learned much. Win or lose, the gods feast on our deeds. A man pets a stray, and his small pleasure in the kindness of the act feeds Slaanesh. A woman strikes her crying child, and that awful moment of elation she feels feeds Khorne. A Munitorum drone considers suicide. Nurgle grows fat on his despair. A merciful strategist devises a plan for bloodless victory, and Tzeentch is content. The Word Bearers believe the gods crave worship. But the gods care for nothing save filling their bellies with our sorrows. Intentionally or not, we are all meat for the beast. Even you, Fabius.”
― Josh Reynolds, Fabius Bile: The Omnibus

“No matter
how hard you train them,
how deliberately you plan,
or how much support you send their way;
to lose Marines
is to watch as fires flicker out
beneath a torrent of rain.”
― Brendan Bigney, War, What Comes After

“We are burnt up by hard facts; like tradesmen we understand distinctions, and like butchers, necessities. We are no longer untroubled-- we are indifferent. We might exist there; but should we really live there? We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial-- I believe we are lost.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet On The Western Front

“It was astonishing how much of the art of warfare was like the social manipulation her mother had insisted she learn: picking battlegrounds, finding allies amongst the enemies of one's enemies...”
― Sarah J. Maas, A ​Court of Silver Flames

“When two countries go to war, they are naturally inclined to make an ostentatious display of their strength. Yet our spies have seen nothing but old age and infirmity. This is surely some ruse on the part of the enemy, and it would be unwise for us to attack.”
― Sun Tzu

“wars are generally lost rather than won, and they are lost by the side that makes the most mistakes”
― Eric Engle

“wars are unpredictable”
― Eric Engle, Cold War II? China, America, Global Strategy, and the New Cold War

“A good strategy is effective no matter what the opponent does.”
― Eric Engle, Cold War II? China, America, Global Strategy, and the New Cold War

“No matter
how hard you train them,
how deliberately you plan,
or how much support you send their way,
there is one constant that does not change;
to lose marines
is to watch as fires flick out
beneath a torrent of rain.”
― Brendan Bigney, War, What Comes After

“Winter after winter
the ants are waiting
In quest of a splinter
frozen ice hating
the way it is- still unmelted
as cold as war...never been welted.”
― Munia Khan

“I had a moment of what I can only call clearheadedness. The suffocating anxiety was gone, momentarily, and I felt a deep relief, a sense of sudden calm after eons of warfare inside my head. I had gotten so used to the noise that the quiet was unfamiliar. It was as if the evil beast that had been holding my head under water, trying to drown me, had suddenly let go.”
― William Dudley, Antidepressants

“Peace never came. Maybe we’d never wanted it from inside. We need geopolitical drama, we need commotion, we need a divide-and-rule policy, and we need to sell weapons and ammunition. We need profit. Who needs peace?”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“First, never let your opponent figure out what you’re doing—deception at all times. Second, always leave yourself a way out.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, The Gathering Elements

“Our fear, the saga of our good deeds, the stories of our thoughts should be spread so far, that even our enemies should praise us... "What is the matter....??" "क्या बात है....??”
― Damodhar L. Vanjari

“If and when the war starts, whenever or whoever you are, all have the responsibility to protect our home and repel our enemy, all must have the will to achieve ultimate sacrifice!”
― Chiang Kai Shek

“Angst may have replaced fear and physical pain in modern societies, yet, without depreciating the merits of traditional society or ignoring the stresses and problems of modernity, this change has been nothing short of revolutionary. People in pre-modern societies struggled to survive in the most elementary sense. The overwhelming majority of them went through a lifetime of hard physical work to escape hunger, from which they were never secure. The tragedy of orphanage, child mortality, premature death of spouses, and early death in general was inseparable from their lives. At all ages, they were afflicted with illness, disability, and physical pain, for which no effective remedies existed. Even where state rule prevailed, violent conflict between neighbors was a regular occurrence and, therefore, an ever-present possibility, putting a premium on physical strength, toughness, and honor, and a reputation for all of these. Hardship and tragedy tended to harden people and make them fatalistic.”
― Azar Gat, War and Strategy in the Modern World

“There are beautiful flowers by the lake. But there are landmines and cluster munition remnants too. We've to be cautious. We live in a very uncertain world.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“A mental image came to her of a good submarine--painted white, perhaps, with a crew that eschewed swearing (at sea) and hard liquor (when ashore), engaged in heroic acts, never used, as most submarines were, to intimidate others. But there were no such submarines--not in the world we knew. There were only dark prowlers bristling with weapons. One nuclear submarine, armed with its Trident missiles, could destroy our planet as we knew it. One submarine, she thought; one. In such a world, what chance did a good submarine have?”
― Alexander McCall Smith Peter Bailey

“Soldiers,' he made an insult of the word. 'Once we were crusaders Khayon, and now we're warriors, but we were never soldiers. Keep that foolishness to yourself.'

I swallowed my argument, following his train of thought. It was not the first time legionaries have disagreed over those semantics, and it would be far from the last. Some believed soldiering came down to discipline, or fighting for a state or a leader rather than for yourself. Some believed warriorhood was a matter of heart that elevated them above a soldier's station, while others considered it a state of barbarity that dragged them beneath it. Some questions have no answers. No matter how seriously we took warfare, no matter how adamantly we clung to our disciplined roots as a Space Marine Legion, many of our number were ultimately the raiders and marauders that time had made them. For better or worse, we would never have the ironclad discipline of a Throne-loyal Adeptus Astartes force. Even back then, we had lost much of the discipline we had once possessed as Legions of the Great Crusade.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“The Ukraine war is really Russia fighting the expansion of NATO onto its borders.”
― Steven Magee

“Though I was sure she’d never noticed it, I had spent my whole life doing what I could to protect her. I didn’t know if she could survive without me. I didn’t know who I would be if she no longer needed me to stand guard.”
― Ruth Clare, Enemy: A True Story of Courage, Childhood Trauma and the Cost of War

“The history of warfare is made up of moments, and decisions, that could have gone either way. -Erasmus”
― Brian Herbert, The Battle of Corrin

“War is the evolution of a brawl.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“Word play is just another form of warfare.”
― Frost Kay, The Heir