War (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Whether war attains its object, whether it is a legitimate object, whether war is a legitimate means—all those are different questions, lying beyond this particular question. But if armed conflict can be as useful or necessary as amputation, it is no answer to say that it is as ugly as amputation.
G. K. Chesterton • The G. K. Chesterton Collection [50 Books]
La guerre, évidemment, a toujours été une science, mais elle a été aussi jadis un art, et nos pères chrétiens ont même réussi à en faire une espèce de sainteté. Durant des siècles, il a été tenu pour déshonorant de frapper le cheval, c’est-à-dire de démonter l’adversaire. Des milliers d’hommes ont refusé de sauver ainsi leur vie, en face d’un ennem
... See moreGeorges Bernanos • La France contre les robots (French Edition)
For the modern world, questions about the nature of humanity would be viewed on par with the struggle among the Lilliputians about the correct way to cut open an egg. Hobbes, the first truly modern philosopher, boasted of how he deserted and ran away from fighting in a religious war; a cowardly life had become preferable to a heroic but meaningless... See more
Peter Thiel • The Straussian Moment
"The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice.
Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge an
... See moreOnce under way, warfare and acts of heroism have all the appearance of necessity, but that appearance is but a veil over the often complicated maneuvers by which the antagonists have arranged their conflict with each other.