Malcolm Forbes Quotes

It is always easy enough to take up arms, but very difficult to lay them down; the commencement and the termination of war are notnecessarily in the same hands; even a coward may begin, but the end comes only when the victors are willing.

Wars: You know how you start, but you never know how you end.

People who start wars never know exactly how they will turn out.

Not only military leaders are sometimes guilty of designing a war as if it were a bridge that only spans half a river, civilian leaders may initiate military campaigns without being troubled by the fact that they have no plan to bring their war to a close.

Wars the United States starts do not necessarily end when and how it wants them to.

Battles are never the end of war; for the dead must be buried and the cost of the conflict must be paid.

I don't want to do a lot of talking on the military. I want to talk after it's finished, not before it starts.

War is just like bush-clearing-the moment you stop, the jungle comes back even thicker, but for a little while you can plant and grow a crop in the ground you have won at such a terrible cost.

As George Orwell wisely observed a generation later, the only way swiftly to end a war is to lose it.

We know from history that the way wars are concluded is absolutely the key to whether or not there is any peace to be kept.

It is a damned sight easier to start wars than to end them. This truth has been stated for as long and as often as it has been ignored. High time and thank God, we are at least moving toward de-escalation in Vietnam. The road to extrication will be long, painful, bitter. But it must be trod. We are so bogged down in Vietnam that we cannot respond effectively anywhere else in the world to a military power play except through atomic bombardment.

When we analyze this war in a materialistic way and ask when is it going to end and who will be the winner and the loser, it means that we do not see the endgame.

We wanted this war and now we've got it, and I'm not sure that we know what to do with it.

All wars come to an end, at least temporarily. But the authority acquired by the state hangs on; political power never abdicates.

Two great and terrible truths of war are these: War is easy to enter into, but difficult to end. And ultimately, in war there are no winners.

Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore... prove ultimately futile.

The whole art of war consists of guessing at what is on the other side of the hill.

Americans have learned that it is harder to end wars than it is to begin them

GENERAL:–Your note of yesterday is received. I have no authority to treat on the subject of peace; the meeting proposed for ten A.M. to-day could lead to no good. I will state, however, general, that I am equally anxious for peace with yourself, and the whole North entertains the same feeling. The terms upon which peace can be had are well understood. By the South laying down their arms they will hasten that most desirable event, save thousands of human lives, and hundreds of millions of property not yet destroyed. Seriously hoping that all our difficulties may be settled without the loss of another life,

Wars do not end wars any more than an extraordinarily large conflagration does away with the fire hazard.

First of all, we have to say loud and clear to all those who are engaged in the fighting that attention to and respect for humanitarian needs is absolutely imperative. Anyone with any knowledge of Iraq, never mind any concern about the future, knows that the way in which the war is prosecuted has a big impact on what comes afterwards.

Mark! Where his carnage and his conquests cease, He makes a solitude and calls it-peace!

Inside the White House there were always extreme amounts of doubt about whether they should be escalating in Afghanistan. In fact, most of the president's advisers said, "This is probably not going to work." A lot of people in the military said, "This is probably not going to work."

The first casualty of any battle is the plan of attack.

The war is won, but the peace is not.