Joseph Joubert on war: All victors will be defeated

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Joseph Joubert
From The Notebooks
Translated by Paul Auster

What comes through war is given back through war. All spoils will be retaken, all plunder will be dispersed. All victors will be defeated and every city filled with prey will be sacked in return.
(1796)

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I imitate the dove and often throw a blade of grass to the drowning ant. (1785)

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An age in which we have children who can scarcely remember having seen their fathers. (1796)