A Quote by George Santayana

Only the dead have seen the end of the war.

George Santayana

Quote Topics

War Dead End Only Seen

Quote Author

George Santayana
Spanish - Novelist
December 16, 1863 - September 26, 1952

Now that I've seen what war is, what civil war is, I know that everybody, if one day it should end, ought to ask himself: "And what shall we make of the fallen? Why are they dead?" I wouldn't know what to say. Not now, at any rate. Nor does it seem to me that the others know. Perhaps only dead know, and only for them is the war really over.

Cesare Pavese

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Plato

I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen 200 limping, exhausted men come out of line—the survivors of a regiment of 1,000 that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Douglas MacArthur

There are no dead-end jobs. There are no dead-end jobs. There are only dead-end people. Our current social philosophy, and the welfare state apparatus based on it, are creating more dead-end people.

Thomas Sowell

Only the dead will know the end of the war.

Plato

But what are a hundred million deaths? When one has served in a war, one hardly knows what a dead man is, after a while. And since a dead man has no substance unless one has actually seen him dead, a hundred million corpses broadcast through history are no more than a puff of smoke in the imagination.

Albert Camus

Nobility and self-sacrifice sound wonderful in theory, but now he’s seen how it feels. A dead hero is still dead at the end of the day, and you’re still alone.

Ann Aguirre

War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.

Tim O'Brien

Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating. [...] For Hamas, the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians.

Charles Krauthammer

War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.

George Orwell

There are no dead ends in life, only dead end thinking.

Orrin Woodward

I, too, have felt that the war goes on and on. When my son, Ian, died at El Alamein-- side by side with... visitors offering their condolences, thinking to comfort me, said, "Life goes on." What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't. It's death that goes on; Ian is dead now and will be dead tomorrow and nexe year and forever. There's no end to that. But perhaps there will be an end to the sorrow of it.

Mary Ann Shaffer

War would end if the dead could return.

Stanley Baldwin

A couple years ago, I felt like I was in a dead end, and I kept asking myself, "How do you get out of a dead end?" People would say the answer is, "You just turn around." But that was not the answer that I was going to accept. I realized, for me, that getting out of a dead end was literally the world turning upside down, and I had to fall out of the dead end. So you have to surrender, so I've really learned how to surrender, practice unconditional love. With my art, I've always put out things I love.