Only the defeated and deserters go to war.

In 1694 a law was passed "that every settler who deserted a town for fear of the Indians should forfeit all his rights therein."…

— Henry David Thoreau

As for those deserters, malcontents, radicals, incendiaries, the civil and uncivil disobedients among the young, SDS, PLP, Weathermen I and Weathermen II, the revolutionary…

— Spiro T. Agnew

“Because people who decline organized leisure activities are deserters from the great common struggle against boredom, and they deserve neither attention nor helmets.”

— Milan Kundera

I think Bowe Bergdahl, if he deserted, is a hero - I think throughout history we should build monuments to the unknown deserters.

— Bill Ayers

Rebel souls deserters we've been called. Chose a gun and threw away the sun now these towns they all know our names. The death…

— Five Finger Death Punch

“[Deserters], they've given up everything. Oaths. Families. When you desert, it breaks you. It leaves you willing to do anything, because you've already given…

— Brandon Sanderson

These deserters were our undoing. I shall have a good deal more to say about them before I finally lay down my pen, and…

— Christiaan Rudolf de Wet

Every army in the history of the world has always had some deserters, usually much greater than we have today, because once again every…

— Bryan Hilferty

On a visit to Cologne in March 1945, after a heavy bombing, I met hundreds and hundreds of deserters who were squatting in the…

— Heinrich Boll

The environmental movement doesn't have many deserters and has a high level of recruitment. Eventually, there will be open war.

— Paul Watson

“Of course vindictiveness is an ugly trait and, yes, I do mean to forgive all these nice deserters; I mean, eventually, to say, to…

— Leif Enger

Sir" said Mrs. Meade indignantly. "There are NO deserters in the Confederate army." "I beg your pardon," said Rhett with mock humility. "I meant…

— Margaret Mitchell

“[W]e cease to be soldiers in the army of the upright; we become deserters. They march to battle. We float with the sticks on…

— Virginia Woolf

The brave men die in war. It takes great luck or judgment not to be killed. Once, at least, the head has to bow…

— Jean Giraudoux

“In the early pages of his gorgeous novel Sepharad, Antonio Munoz Molina writes: "Only those of us who have left know what the city…

— Rabih Alameddine