32 World War 2 Quotes

The words of those who lived through World War II have left an indelible mark on history, offering insights into the courage, sacrifice, and resilience of both soldiers and civilians. These quotes capture the essence of a time marked by unprecedented global conflict and profound human experience. In this post, we've carefully selected 32 of the most impactful quotes from World War II, each one reflecting different facets of the war and its aftermath. Whether spoken by leaders, soldiers, or ordinary people, these quotations continue to resonate, reminding us of the enduring lessons of the past.

1. “TO ALL THEambulance driversfirewatchersair-raid wardensnursescanteen workersairplane spottersrescue workersmathematiciansvicarsvergersshopgirlschorus girlslibrariansdebutantesspinstersfishermenretired sailorsservantsevacueesShakespearean actorsand mystery novelistsWHO WON THE WAR.” - Connie Willis

2. “But if she'd come then, she would never have properly appreciated it. She'd have seen the happy crowds and the Union Jacks and the bonfires, but she'd have no idea of what it meant to see the lights on after years of navigating in the dark, what it meant to look up at an approaching plane without fear, to hear church bells after years of air-raid sirens. She'd have had no idea of the years of rationing and shabby clothes and fear which lay behind the smiles and the cheering, no idea of what it had cost to bring this day to pass--the lives of all those soldiers and sailors and airmen and civilians.” - Connie Willis

3. “If the day should ever come when we must go, if some day we are compelled to leave the scene of history, we will slam the door so hard that the universe will shake and mankind will stand back in stupefaction..” - Joseph Goebbels

4. “I was on one of my world 'walkabouts.' It had taken me once more through Hong Kong, to Japan, Australia, and then Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific [one of the places I grew up]. There I found the picture of 'the Father.' It was a real, gigantic Saltwater Crocodile (whose picture is now featured on page 1 of TEETH). From that moment, 'the Father' began to swim through the murky recesses of my mind. Imagine! I thought, men confronting the world’s largest reptile on its own turf! And what if they were stripped of their firearms, so they must face this force of nature with nothing but hand weapons and wits?We know that neither whales nor sharks hunt individual humans for weeks on end. But, Dear Reader, crocodiles do! They are intelligent predators that choose their victims and plot their attacks. So, lost on its river, how would our heroes escape a great hunter of the Father’s magnitude? And what if these modern men must also confront the headhunters and cannibals who truly roam New Guinea? What of tribal wars, the coming of Christianity and materialism (the phenomenon known as the 'Cargo Cult'), and the people’s introduction to 'civilization' in the form of world war? What of first contact between pristine tribal culture and the outside world? What about tribal clashes on a global scale—the hatred and enmity between America and Japan, from Pearl Harbor, to the only use in history of atomic weapons? And if the world could find peace at last, how about Johnny and Katsu?” - Timothy James Dean

5. “Darwinism by itself did not produce the Holocaust, but without Darwinism... neither Hitler nor his Nazi followers would have had the necessary scientific underpinnings to convince themselves and their collaborators that one of the worlds greatest atrocities was really morally praiseworthy.” - Richard Weikart

6. “Future generations would be convinced that nothing good could ever have existed in a country that produced such evil. They would think only of these evils. It would be as if these unleashed dark forces had grotesquely marched like devils on dead horses, backward through the gash in the present, and had destroyed the German past too.” - Eric Metaxas

7. “He threw his burning cigarette onto our clean living room floor and ground it into the wood with his boot.We were about to become cigarettes.” - Ruta Sepetys

8. “There are some things you never say good-bye to” - Elizabeth Berg

9. “For all it's problems and difficulties, life is mostly a wonderful experience, and it is up to each person to make the most of each day. I hope you are successful in your life, but look to the heavens and the earth and especially to other people to find your real wealth. Wherever I am, wherever you go, know that my love goes with you.” - Elizabeth Berg

10. “First of all, I want you to know that I believed in the cause for which I died. No war is won without sacrifice.” - Elizabeth Berg

11. “There are guys bleeding to death who don't know it, they're smiling, they're talking, they don't feel pain because they're in shock, they ask you for some water and then they're dead. On D-day I ran past a guy lying on his spilled guts with his eyes closed and his thumb in his mouth. Eisenhower's speech had been read to us over the loudspeaker by our commander when we crossed the channel that morning. What valor and inspiration were in his words- all about how we were embarked on a great crusade, that the hopes and prayers of a liberty loving people were going with us....I got gooseflesh when he asked for the blessing of almighty god on this great and noble undertaking. But how to reconcile that with spilled guts on a beach and flies in the eyes of some dead nineteen year old kid who traded his life for some words on paper?” - Elizabeth Berg

12. “Is war a sin?” - Elizabeth Berg

13. “It seemed impossible that men with hearts and brains were capable of it. Such devastation of cities, so many innocent lives lost. It seemed to him that if just a small part of the effort put into war could be put into peace, they'd be so much better off” - Elizabeth Berg

14. “She honestly wondered sometimes which fate was worse, death or standing behind a curtain and looking out at the street at all the things you felt you could no longer have.” - Elizabeth Berg

15. “We're so far away from those stars” - Elizabeth Berg

16. “She put her hand over her heart. Oh boy. It hurts. It's a real pain. Right here.” - Elizabeth Berg

17. “A family is no place for privacy!” - Elizabeth Berg

18. “Remember me in your dreams, as I will you.” - Elizabeth Berg

19. “Lovely morning, World War Two.” - Thomas Pynchon

20. “That they were torn from mistakes they had no chance to fix; everything unfinished. All the sins of love without detail, detail without love. The regret of having spoken, of having run out of time to speak. Of hoarding oneself. Of turning one’s back too often in favour of sleep. I tried to imagine their physical needs, the indignity of human needs grown so extreme they equal your longing for wife, child, sister, parent, friend. But truthfully I couldn’t even begin to imagine the trauma of their hearts, of being taken in the middle of their lives. Those with young children. Or those newly in love, wrenched from that state of grace. Or those who had lived invisibly, who were never know.” - Anne Michaels

21. “Long ago she'd clamped an iron shell around her heart and nothing and no one could pry it lose, but deep inside the tender flesh still beat.” - Sarah Sundin

22. “In the eleven months preceding the outbreak of World War II, 211 treaties of peace were signed. Were these treaties of peace written on paper, or were they written on the hearts of men? And we must ask ourselves as we hear of treaties being written today, whether the treaties of the UN are written with the full cognizance of the fact that those who sign them are responsible before God?” - Fulton J. Sheen

23. “Finally, I wish to remember the millions of Allied servicemen and prisoners of war who lived the story of the Second World War. Many of these men never came home; many others returned bearing emotional and physical scars that would stay with them for the rest of their lives. I come away from this book with the deepest appreciation for what these men endured, and what they scarified, for the good of humanity. It is to them that this book {Unbroken} is dedicated,” - Laura Hillenbrand

24. “We should never forget that everything Adolph Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighers did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

25. “When he shows I’ll say: ‘Good day, a bouquet for Mr. Hovgaard.’ Then you shoot him. Understood?”Ingrid aka ‘Alis K’The Informer” - Steen Langstrup

26. “My name’s Alis K. From now on you will be Willy. Come on, let’s push the bicycles for a bit.”Ingrid aka ‘Alis K’The Informer” - Steen Langstrup

27. “Sneaking out at night. You think you’re so clever, but you’re not. Either you’re a saboteur, Johannes, or you’ve got a mistress.”The Reverend’s wife, GreteThe Informer” - Steen Langstrup

28. “Meet me tonight, six o’clock sharp, at the gates of the municipal hospital. It is very important that you are precise. Not five minutes early, not five minutes late. In case I’m not there, you leave straight away. Got it?”Ingrid aka ‘Alis K’The Informer” - Steen Langstrup

29. “Kropp on the other hand is a thinker. He proposes that a declaration of war should be a kind of popular festival with entrance-tickets and bands, like a bull fight. Then in the arena the ministers and generals of the two countries, dressed in bathing-drawers and armed with clubs, can have it out on themselves. Whoever survives the country wins. That would be much simpler and more than just this arrangement, where the wrong people do the fighting” - Enrich Maria Remarque

30. “It was the second time in a row they were expecting us. We’ve got an informer in our group.”Johannes aka ‘BB’The Informer by Steen Langstrup” - Steen Langstrup

31. “Everything changed, and eleven months later, here I was in the middle of the night with a gungho major, playing secret agent, hoping some Frenchie didn't put a bullet in my skull before I gave the Germans and Italians their chance.” - James R. Benn

32. “Except for a roll of Harding's eyes, everyone ignored me, which is the way I liked it when I had to hang around with senior officers. They had a way of thinking up ideas that got you killed and them promoted.” - James R. Benn