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Ernest Hemingway Quotes about War

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The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Political, Ruins
Ernest Hemingway (2014). “The Hemingway Collection”, p.4177, Simon and Schuster

War is no longer made by simply analyzed economic forces if it ever was. War is made or planned now by individual men, demagogues and dictators who play on the patriotism of their people to mislead them into a belief in the great fallacy of war when all their vaunted reforms have failed to satisfy the people they misrule.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Men, Play
Ernest Hemingway, Séan A. Hemingway (2003). “Hemingway on war”, Scribner Book Company

Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today. It's been that way all this year. It's been that way so many times. All of war is that way.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Years, One Day
Ernest Hemingway (2014). “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, p.468, Simon and Schuster

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

Ernest Hemingway
Inspirational, Military, War
Ernest Hemingway, Patrick Hemingway (2012). “Hemingway on War”, p.27, Simon and Schuster

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one. You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.

Ernest Hemingway
Peace, War, Wipe
"Treasury of the Free World". Book by Ben Raeburn. Introduction to the book, 1946.

To make war all you need is intelligence. But to win you need talent and material.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Winning, Needs
Ernest Hemingway (2014). “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, p.112, Simon and Schuster

Wars are caused by undefended wealth.

Ernest Hemingway
Peace, Military, War

No catalogue of horrors ever kept men from war. Before the war you always think that it's not you that dies. But you will die, brother, if you go to it long enough.

Ernest Hemingway
Brother, War, Thinking
Ernest Hemingway (2014). “The Hemingway Collection”, p.4181, Simon and Schuster

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

Ernest Hemingway
Peace, War, Guarantees
Ernest Hemingway, Patrick Hemingway (2012). “Hemingway on War”, p.27, Simon and Schuster

When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you. . . . Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you. After being severely wounded two weeks before my nineteenth birthday I had a bad time until I figured out that nothing could happen to me that had not happened to all men before me. Whatever I had to do men had always done. If they had done it then I could do it too and the best thing was not to worry about it.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Boys, Men
Ernest Hemingway (2014). “The Hemingway Collection”, p.3863, Simon and Schuster

It was like certain dinners I remember from the war. There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening. Under the wine I lost the disgusted feeling and was happy. It seemed they were all such nice people.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Nice, Wine
Ernest Hemingway (2016). “The Sun Also Rises”, p.74, Hamilton Books

War is not won by victory.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Victory
Ernest Hemingway (2012). “A Farewell to Arms: The Hemingway Library Edition”, p.44, Simon and Schuster

We in America should see that no man is ever given, no matter how gradually or how noble and excellent the man, the power to put this country into a war which is now being prepared and brought closer each day with all the pre-meditation of a long planned murder. For when you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.

Ernest Hemingway
Country, War, Men
Ernest Hemingway (2012). “Hemingway on War”, p.304, Simon and Schuster

An aggressive war is the great crime against everything good in the world. A defensive war, which must necessarily turn to aggressive at the earliest moment, is the necessary great counter-crime. But never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Crime, Infantry
"Treasury of the Free World". Book by Ben Raeburn. Introduction to the book, 1946.

Until the dead are buried they change somewhat in appearance each day. The color change in Caucasian races is from white to yellow, to yellow-green, to black. If left long enough in the heat the flesh comes to resemble coal-tar, especially where it has been broken or torn, and it has quite a visible tarlike iridescence. The dead grow larger each day until sometimes they become quite too big for their uniforms, filling these until they seem blown tight enough to burst. The individual members may increase in girth to an unbelievable extent and faces fill as taut and globular as balloons.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Yellow, White
Ernest Hemingway (2002). “Death in the Afternoon”, p.112, Simon and Schuster

We think. We are not peasants. We are mechanics. But even the peasants know better than to believe in a war. Everybody hates war. There is a class that control a country that is stupid and down not realise anything and never can. That is why we have this war. Also they make money out of it.

Ernest Hemingway
Country, Hate, War
Ernest Hemingway (1929). “A Farewell to Arms: With an Introd”

There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Names, Honor
Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities Harold Bloom, Ernest Hemingway (2009). “Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms”, p.49, Infobase Publishing

In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.

Ernest Hemingway
Dog, Peace, War
Ernest Hemingway (2008). “The Good Life According to Hemingway”, Ecco

The only place where you could see life and death, i. e., violent death now that the wars were over, was in the bull ring and I wanted very much to go to Spain where I could study it. I was trying to learn to write, commencing with the simplest things, and one of the simplest things of all and the most fundamental is violent death.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Writing, Life And Death
Ernest Hemingway (2002). “Death in the Afternoon”, p.12, Simon and Schuster

(World War I) was the most colossal, murderous, mismanaged butchery that has ever taken place on earth. Any writer who said otherwise lied, So the writers either wrote propaganda, shut up, or fought.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Taken, History

The sinews of war are five - men, money, materials, maintenance (food) and morale.

Ernest Hemingway
Military, War, Men

It could be worse,' Passini said respectfully. "There is nothing worse than war." Defeat is worse." I do not believe it," Passini said still respectfully. "What is defeat? You go home.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Believe, Home
Ernest Hemingway (2016). “A Farewell to Arms”, p.30, Hamilton Books

One battle doesn't make a campagin, but critics treat one book, good or bad, like a whole war.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Book, Battle

In war, one cannot say what one feels.

Ernest Hemingway
War, Feels
Ernest Hemingway (2014). “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, p.328, Simon and Schuster

I always like it at a war. There is always the chance that you will get up the next morning and be killed and not have to write.

Ernest Hemingway
Morning, War, Writing

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