War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.

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.

Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.

I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.

You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end.

If forced to choose between the penitentiary and the White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you.

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will.