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War is at best barbarism.

William Tecumseh Sherman

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William Tecumseh Sherman
Age: 71 †
Born: 1820
Born: February 8
Died: 1891
Died: February 14
Banker
Lawyer
Military Officer
U.S. General
William T. Sherman
General Sherman
Best
Barbarism
War

More quotes by William Tecumseh Sherman

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I will accept no commission that would tend to create a rivalry with Grant. I want him to hold what he has earned and got. I have all the rank I want.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it. Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them?
William Tecumseh Sherman
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We can make war so terrible and make them so sick of war that generations pass away before they again appeal to it.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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The voice of the people is the voice of humbug.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell. You can bear this warning voice to generations yet to come. I look upon war with horror.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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...[We] must stop these swarms of Jews who are trading, bartering and robbing.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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The way to success is strategically along the way of least expectation and tactically along the line of least resistance.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see that in the end you will surely fail.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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An army is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. Every enactment, every change of rule which impairs this principle weakens the army, impairs its value, and defeats the very object of its existence.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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An army to be useful must be a unit, and out of this has grown the saying, attributed to Napoleon, but doubtless spoken before the days of Alexander, that an army with an inefficient commander was better than one with two able heads.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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I knew wherever I was that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come-if alive.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children... during an assault, the soldiers cannot pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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Courage - a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.
William Tecumseh Sherman