Lest We Forget...

Peace is better than war, because in peace 
the sons bury their fathers, but in war 
the fathers bury their sons.  
Croesus to Cambyses - Bacon, Apothegems

The terrible rumble, grumble and roar
Telling the battle was on once more ---
And Sheridan twenty miles away!
Thomas Buchanan Read - Sheridan's Ride

War should be undertaken in such a way as to 
show that its only object is peace.  
(Bellum autem ita suscipiatur, ut nihil aliud 
nisl pax quaesita videatur.)
Cicero, De Officiis

It was great pity, so it was,
That villanous saltpetre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly.
Shakespeare, I Henry IV

The drums of war, the drums of peace,
Roll through our cities without cease,
And all the iron halls of life
Ring with the unremitting strife.
R.L. Stevenson, The Woodman

It is a general rule of reason, That every man 
ought to endeavour Peace, as far as he had hope 
of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that
 he may seek and use all helps and advantages of War.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Few, few shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.
Thomas Campbell, Hohenlinden

Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms,
To deck our girls for gay delights!
The crimson flower of battle blooms,
And solemn marches fill the nights.
Julia Ward Howe, Our Orders

Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth
On War's red techstone rang true metal,
Who ventered life a' love an' youth
For the gret prize o' death in battle?
J.R. Lowell, Biglow Papers

Beware, I am here. (Cave, adsum.)
Wilhelm II of Germany (then Prince Wilhelm)
is said to have written this on a photograph 
which he presented to Bismarck in 1884.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Lord Byron, The Destruction of Sennacherib

I hate that drum's discordant sound
Parading round and round and round:
To me it talks of ravaged plains,
And burning towns, and ruined swains,
And mangled limbs, and dying groans,
And widows' tears, and orphans' moans;
And all that misery's hand bestows
To fill the catalogue of human woes.
John Scott, Ode on Hearing the Drum

We check manslaughter and isolated murders;
but what of war and the much-vaunted crime of
slaughtering whole peoples? ... Deeds which
would be punished by loss of life when
comitted in secret, are praised by us because
uniformed generals have carried them out.
Seneca, Epistulae ad Lucilium

In the arts of life man invents nothing; but
in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, 
and produces by chemistry and machinery
all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine.
G.Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman