Truth Is The First Casualty Quotes

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It was war, and in war the truth was almost always the first casualty.
Vince Flynn (Executive Power (Mitch Rapp, #6))
In war, truth is the first casualty.
Aeschylus
The first casualty of war is the truth.
Julie Berry (Lovely War)
In war, the first casualty is truth.
Aeschylus (Agamemnon (Oresteia, #1))
In war, the first casualty is truth.
Terry Hayes (I Am Pilgrim)
The first casualty when war comes is truth.
Hiram Johnson
Van Houten, I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently. Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. (Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invented anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox. After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.” A desert blessing, an ocean curse. What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
Regardless of sex, everyone loses something in a war... but the first casualty is always the truth.
Brian K. Vaughan (Saga, Volume 5)
As in any war, the truth is the first casualty.
John Grisham
Truth may often be the first casualty of war, but dignity is definitely the first casualty of disease.
Mark Lawrence (One Word Kill (Impossible Times, #1))
To say that the first casualty of war is truth is to miss the rather more important point that a principal weapon of war is lies.
Harry Collins (The Golem at Large: What You Should Know about Technology (Canto))
But what if it's a trap?' she repeated. Joe gave her a hard stare.'Of course it's a fucking trap,' he said.
Chris Ryan (Osama: The First Casualty of War is the Truth, the Second is Your Soul)
When love dies and marriage lies in ruins, the first casualty is honest memory, decent, impartial recall of the past. Too inconvenient, too damning of the present. It's the spectre of old happiness at the feast of failure and desolation. So, against that headwind of forgetfulness I want to place my little candle of truth and see how far it throws its light.
Ian McEwan (Nutshell)
Here's the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That's what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. ... We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it's silly and useless--epically useless in my current state--but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either. People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, Van Houten. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox. ... But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. ... What else? She is so beautiful. You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
They say truth is the first casualty of war. But who defines what's true? [...] Truth is just a matter of perspective. The duty of every soldier is to protect the innocent, and sometimes that means preserving the lie of good and evil—that war isn't just natural selection played out on a grand scale. [...] The only truth I found is that the world we live in is a giant tinderbox. All it takes...is someone to light the match.
Captain John Price
Truth is the first casualty of war and the war on drugs is no different. Every day both the print and broadcast media bombard the public with a perspective and narrative which has proved to be devastating. This diet of cultural influence and propaganda is unremitting.
Dominic Milton Trott (The Drug Users Bible)
The first casualty of war is truth, and the war on drugs is no different
Dominic Milton Trott (The Honest Drug Book: A Chemical & Botanical Journey Through The Legal High Years)
There is an overwhelming inclination to keep the unsavory particulars hidden from public view, to pretend the calamity never occurred. Thus it has always been, and probably always will be. As Aeschylus, the illustrious Greek tragedian, noted in the fifth century B.C., “In war, truth is the first casualty.
Jon Krakauer (Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman)
People are dying because of ignorance. They are dying because unremitting propaganda is denying them essential safety information. They are dying because legislators and the media are censoring the science, and are ruthlessly pushing an ideological agenda instead. They are dying because the first casualty of war is truth, and the war on drugs is no different.
Dominic Milton Trott (The Honest Drug Book: A Chemical & Botanical Journey Through The Legal High Years)
Rumor runs through the community like a plague, and truth is the first casualty.
Greg Iles (The Quiet Game (Penn Cage, #1))
In war, truth is the first casualty. Everyone has their own version of what’s right and wrong, but reality gets twisted in the heat of battle.
Rita Mae Brown (High Hearts)
TRUTH IS THE FIRST CASUALTY OF TYRANNY. THE FURTHER A SOCIETY DRIFTS FROM THE TRUTH, THE MORE IT WILL HATE THOSE WHO SPEAK IT - GEORGE ORWELL.
Mark Loren (October Fall (October Fall Series, #1))
the warfighter. Truth is the first casualty of war, but it survives when good prevails.
Benjamin Hall (Saved: A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home)
In war, truth is the first casualty. —AESCHYLUS
Harold G. Moore (We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young: Ia Drang-The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam)
My apologies, see, I forgot my manners. I get on the mic ’cause it’s my life. You show off for girls and cameras. You a pop star, not a rapper. A Vanilla Ice or a Hammer. Y’all hear this crap he dumping out? Somebody get him a Pamper. And a crown for me. The best have heard about me. You can only spell “brilliant” by first spelling Bri. You see, naturally, I do my shit with perfection. Better call a bodyguard ’cause you gon’ need some protection, And on this here election, the people crown a new leader. You didn’t see this coming, and your ghostwriters didn’t either. I came here to ether. I’m sorry to do this to you. This is no longer a battle, it’s your funeral, boo. I’m murdering you. On my corner they call me coroner, I’m warning ya. Tell the truth, this dude is borin’ ya. You confused like a foreigner. I’ll explain with ease: You’re just a casualty in the reality of the madness of Bri. No fallacies, I spit maladies, causin’ fatalities, And do it casually, damaging rappers without bandaging. Imagining managing my own label, my own salary. And actually, factually, there’s no MC that’s as bad as me. Milez? That’s cute. But it don’t make me cower. I move at light speed, you stuck at per hour. You spit like a lisp. I spit like a high power. Bri’s the future, and you Today like Matt Lauer. You coward. But you’re a G? It ain’t convincing to me. You talk about your clothes, about your shopping sprees. You talk about your Glock, about your i-c-e. But in this here ring, they all talking ’bout me, Bri!
Angie Thomas (On the Come Up)
The other side’s version,” Kolokoltsov thought. Even here, he’s not willing to call it “the truth.” Whoever said truth is the first casualty of war damned well knew what he was talking about!
David Weber (Uncompromising Honor (Honor Harrington, #14))
The first casualty of war is the truth.
Nelson DeMille (The Deserter (Scott Brodie & Maggie Taylor #1))
The first casualty of any war is the truth, and the War on Drugs is no exception.
Neil Woods (Drug Wars: The terrifying inside story of Britain’s drug trade)
Regret to inform you that your son, Private Such-and-Such, is reported killed in action during heavy bombardment" or "has died of wounds at a casualty clearing station." Followed by a letter from a CO reporting, in every instance, that they passed bravely, swiftly, without much pain, They never said, "Hung for hours on a barbed wire fence with his bowels hanging out, pleading for rescue, but nobody dared go for fear of hostile fire." The first casualty of war is the truth.
Julie Berry (Lovely War)
The current plight of boys and young men is, in fact, a women’s issue. Those boys are our sons; they are the people with whom our daughters will build a future. If our boys are in trouble, so are we all. In the war against boys, as in all wars, the first casualty is truth.
Christina Hoff Sommers (The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies are Harming Our Young Men)
of these muscle peddlers claim they’re hard gainers, and brag about how they overcame their “hardgainingness” using the training methods (and perhaps supplements) you can buy from them, sometimes at outrageous prices. But what these men don’t tell you is that they overcame their genetic shortcomings with long-term drug abuse. Remember that the first casualty of steroid use is the truth. Be on your guard!
Stuart McRobert (Beyond Brawn)
But Hitler couldn’t simply attack. He must first make it look like self-defense. So on August 22, he told his generals, “I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war; never mind whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterward whether he told the truth.” The plan was for the SS, dressed in Polish uniforms, to attack a German radio station on the Polish border. To make the whole thing authentic, they would need German “casualties.” They decided to use concentration camp inmates, whom they vilely referred to as Konserven (canned goods). These victims of Germany would be dressed as German soldiers. In the end only one man was murdered for this purpose, via lethal injection, and afterward shot several times to give the appearance that he had been killed by Polish soldiers. The deliberate murder of a human being for the purposes of deceiving the world seems a perfectly fitting inaugural act for what was to follow. This took place on schedule, August 31.
Eric Metaxas (Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy)
We could take the church easily.” “Not without casualties. Maybe pregnant ones since there are at leave five pregnant women in that small compound,” Damon returned. “I want to go in first.” “Maybe.” Grey’s eyes narrowed. “Or is it just the woman?” … Damon looked at his best friend, giving the truth as always. “Of course, it’s the woman. How could it not be?
Rebecca Zanetti (Winter Igniting (Scorpius Syndrome #5))
Truth is the first casualty of war.
Sophie Masson (1914 (Australia's Great War, #1))
Peope say 'We must fight for peace.' But, to fight is to end peace. Peace is not a fight, it is a state of being. 'Peace on earth' and 'the war to end all wars' they say. But, tell the Mothers and Fathers with Daughters and Sons in the ground 'peace on earth.' Tell them that the latest war will some how 'end all wars' rather than create perpetual war like all other wars. After all wars first casualty is the truth.
David Holdsworth
the first casualty of war was the truth, and oftentimes, the second casualty was the truth teller.
Bobby Akart (Level 6 (Pandemic #3))
In war, truth is the first casualty
Alison Goodman
truth is the first casualty in war.
Peter Cawdron (Clowns)
As California senator Hiram Johnson said in 1917, “The first casualty when war comes is truth.
John M. Barry (The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History)
Aeschylus said, 'In war, truth is the first casualty.' now we can add politics." Captain Hank Bracker
Hank Bracker
Love is always the first casualty of a religious war, the second is Truth and the third...Humanity.
Jason Versey
What was it somebody once said—in war, the first casualty is truth?
Terry Hayes (I Am Pilgrim (Pilgrim, #1))
the first casualty of war is truth.
Dominic Selwood (Spies, Sadists and Sorcerers)
From the Bridge” The Importance of History Not all that many years ago the Importance of history would have been a “no brainer!” People understood that there was very little new under the sun, and history was a good barometer to the future. “Those that fail to heed history are doomed to repeat it, “was an adage frequently heard. It gave us a perspective by which to stabilize our bearings and allowed us to find one of the few ways by which we could understand who we are. The myth that George Washington, not being able to lie, admitted to chopping down his father’s favorite cherry tree helped us create a moral compass. Abraham Lincoln’s moniker “Honest Abe,” took root when he worked as a young store clerk in New Salem, IL. The name stuck before he became a lawyer or a politician. His writings show that he valued honesty and in 1859 when he ran for the presidency the nickname became his campaign slogan. However, apparently ”Honest Abe” did lie about whether he was negotiating with the South to end the war and also knowingly concealed some of the most lethal weapons ever devised during the Civil War." These however, were very minor infractions when compared to what we are now expected to believe from our politicians. Since World War II the pace of life has moved faster than ever and may actually have overrun our ability to understand the significance and value of our own honesty. We no longer turn to our past for guidance regarding the future; rather we look into our future in terms of what we want and how we will get it. We have developed to the point that we are much smarter than our ancestors and no longer need their morality and guidance. What we don’t know we frequently fabricate and in most cases, no one picks up on it and if they do, it really doesn’t seem to matter. In short the past has become outdated, obsolete and therefore has become largely irrelevant to us. Being less informed about our past is not the result of a lack of information or education, but of ambivalence and indifference. Perhaps history belongs to the ages but not to us. To a great extent we as a people really do not believe that history matters very much, if at all. My quote “History is not owned solely by historians. It is part of everyone’s heritage,” was written for the opening page of my award winning book “The Exciting Story of Cuba.” Not only is it the anchor holding our Ship of State firmly secure, it is the root of our very being. Yes, history is important. In centuries past this statement would have been self-evident. Our predecessors devoted much time and effort in teaching their children history and it helped provide the foundation to understanding who they were. It provided them a reference whereby they could set their own life’s goals. However society has, to a great extent, turned its back on the past. We now live in an era where the present is most important and our future is being built on shifting sand. We, as a people are presently engaged in a struggle for economic survival and choose to think of ourselves in terms of where wind and tide is taking us, rather than where we came from. We can no longer identify with our ancestors, thus they are no longer relevant. Their lives were so different from our own that they no longer can shed any light on our experience or existence. Therefore, in the minds of many of us, the past no longer has the value it once had nor do we give it the credence it deserves. As in war, the truth is the first victim; however this casualty threatens the very fabric of our being. When fact and fiction are interchanged to satisfy the moment, the bedrock of history in undermined. When we depend on the truth to structure our future, it is vital that it be based on truthful history and the honesty of those who write it. It is a crime without penalty when our politicians tell us lies. In fact they are often shamefully rewarded; encouraging them to become even more blatant in the lies they tell.
Hank Bracker
in war, the first casualty is truth?
Terry Hayes (I Am Pilgrim (Pilgrim, #1))
In crime, the first casualty is often truth.
Ronald W. Walker (Massacre at Mountain Meadows)
Another important lesson from the time was that mass self-deception is simply a sedative prescribed by leaders who cannot face reality themselves. And as the Spanish Civil War proved, the first casualty of war is not truth, but its source: the conscience and integrity of the individual.
Antony Beevor (The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939)
The first casualty of war is truth.
Anna Beer (Sir Walter Ralegh and his Readers in the Seventeenth Century (Early Modern Literature in History))
As is well known, the first casualty of war is the truth.
Ronald Benjamin (Three Kisses in Honiara: The Edge, War and Romance in Paradise)
In truth, we are all trying to build the airplane while flying it—figuring it out as we go. This means more off-ramps than on-ramps, more chances for confusion than certainty, and more ambiguity than clarity. In a word, much of life can leave us feeling completely, inextricably, absolutely, and totally distracted. When this happens, one of the first casualties is our joy.
Bob Goff (Undistracted: Capture Your Purpose. Rediscover Your Joy.)
Governments often use false information to advance their policies or strategies. This is a difficult problem in a time of civil unrest or war. The expression “In war, truth is the first casualty” is attributed to the Greek playwright Aeschylus writing around 550 B.C.
Tom Quiggin (Eyewitness to Deceit : PM Trudeau’s Infowar on Freedom Convoy 2022)
The federal government was giving no guidance that a reasoning person could credit. Few local governments did better. They left a vacuum. Fear filled it. The government’s very efforts to preserve “morale” fostered the fear, for since the war began, morale—defined in the narrowest, most shortsighted fashion—had taken precedence in every public utterance. As California senator Hiram Johnson said in 1917, “The first casualty when war comes is truth.
John M. Barry (The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History)
In war, truth is the first casualty —Aeschylus
Andrew Watts (The War Planners (The War Planners #1))
When a company starts to lose its major battles, the truth often becomes the first casualty. CEOs and employees work tirelessly to develop creative narratives that help them avoid dealing with the obvious facts. Despite their intense creativity, many companies often end up with the same false explanations.
Ben Horowitz (The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers)
Truth is the first casualty of fascism. When the truth can be so easily disregarded, all hell follows.
Cliff James (Life As A Kite)
The first casualty of (political) war is the Truth
Paraphrased from Hiram Johnson
The first casualty of war is the truth.” Excerpt From Lovely War Julie Berry This material may be protected by copyright.
Julie Berry
But the first casualty of the Afghanistan War wasn't truth. That had long before succumbed to the onslaught of Soviet lies about all aspects of life. The all-encompassing brainwashing makes the task of discerning what actually took place in Afghanistan especially difficult. The manufactured justifications that enabled many to close their eyes to the war's unspeakable abuses continue to influence perceptions-although the Soviets had no monopoly in that.
Gregory Feifer (The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan)