Ezra Pound Quotes

How do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists, then believe what they read.

there couldn't be war, unless lies were believed. War has to be nourished by lies.

The first time I experienced war, I thought the world was ending.

In the beginning of the Great War, the emotions of Europe ran riot in a most horrible manner, first among the so-called 'living,' and then among the killed when they awoke.

Everyone, when there's war in the air, learns to live in a new element: falsehood.

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.

How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.

War taught me that not everything is glamorous.

In war, it feels like everything you're doing is more important because you're in the proximity of violence and death, and that proximity changes your relationship to America because it changes the way you see the world.

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

One of the reasons it's important for me to write about war is I really think that the concept of war, the specifics of war, the nature of war, the ethical ambiguities of war, are introduced too late to children. I think they can hear them, understand them, know about them, at a much younger age without being scared to death by the stories.

As one who participated in all the wars of the state of Israel, I saw the horror of wars. I saw the fear of wars. I saw my best friends being killed in battles. I was seriously injured twice.

There can hardly be a more grave act imaginable than to dupe a democracy into going to war, but this is what Bush has done.

One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

Propaganda must not serve the truth, especially insofar as it might bring out something favorable to the opponent.... The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.

Military glory—the attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood.

Food is as important to armies as ammunition—but more important than either is an unfailing supply of lies. You simply cannot murder your enemy in the most efficient manner if you know he is in every essential the same kind of a man as yourself.

Your case for war was a pack of lies.

If you believe that their real intention is to kill you, it isn't unreasonable to believe that they would lie to you.

It is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interest of the country.

In real life, it's war, and war's not entertainment. War is 'old men lying and young men dying' kind of deal. That's a saying; I didn't make that up.

At no time did I suggest that violence is justice, and I can't believe I even have to explain that. But the alternative is letting someone like Kayleigh McEnany misquote and manipulate what you say. McEnany, who repeatedly lies to the American people.

They say that truth is the first casualty of war. But there is another casualty as well: trust. As conflict escalates, trust between people and political leaders crumbles away as surely as night follows day.

President Trump not only lies with astonishing temerity and abandon, but those lies connect into equally false narratives that gin up the worst fears and prejudices of his base.