Bleys

“For war was not just a military campaign but also a parable. There were lessons of camaraderie and duty and inscrutable fate. There were lessons of honor and courage, of compassion and sacrifice. And then there was the saddest lesson, to be learned again and again in the coming weeks as they fought across Sicily, and in the coming months as they fought their way back toward a world at peace: that war is corrupting, that it corrodes the soul and tarnishes the spirit, that even the excellent and the superior can be defiled, and that no heart would remain unstained.”
― Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944

“Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.”
― Samuel Johnson

“States are like gamblers; they lie themselves into believing that they have any amount in their pockets, and when a number turns up for them they think that they have won. Is it possible that any people can show, or will ever be able to show, a gain, whether it be in land, subjects, war indemnity, trade advantages, alliances, or whatever it may be, that will compensate for the losses that every nation has suffered through the time the game has lasted?”
― Rudolf Binding, A Fatalist at War

“Let us learn our lessons. Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The Statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”
― Winston Churchill, My Early Life