“Non-combatant, n. A dead Quaker.”

From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (5 December 1935)
Letters
Context: You express amazement at my statement that 'civilized' men try to justify their looting, butchering and plundering by claiming that these things are done in the interests of art, progress and culture. That this simple statement of fact should cause surprize, amazes me in return. People claiming to possess superior civilization have always veneered their rapaciousness by such claims...
Your friend Mussolini is a striking modern-day example. In that speech of his I heard translated he spoke feelingly of the expansion of civilization. From time to time he has announced; 'The sword and civilization go hand in hand!' 'Wherever the Italian flag waves it will be as a symbol of civilization!' 'Africa must be brought into civilization!' It is not, of course, because of any selfish motive that he has invaded a helpless country, bombing, burning and gassing both combatants and non-combatants by the thousands. Oh, no, according to his own assertions it is all in the interests of art, culture and progress, just as the German war-lords were determined to confer the advantages of Teutonic Kultur on a benighted world, by fire and lead and steel. Civilized nations never, never have selfish motives for butchering, raping and looting; only horrid barbarians have those.

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

David Crystal, Language Play, University of Chicago Press, 1998

On life <br class="br">Context: Otherwise, I know I’m often wasting my breath and electronic ink saying this, but the “real-world” is a pretty weird place where lots of inexplicable things happen all the time, and I like to catch the flavor of that too. It just seems more modern and authentic to me as a storyteller. The “real world” doesn’t come with the neat three-act structures and resolutions we love to impose on it, and if repeated doses of movie and TV-storytelling have convinced anyone that it does, it‘s time to get out and about a bit. The real world is filled with ghost stories, non sequiturs, inexplicable mysteries, dead ends and absurdities, and I think it’s cool to season our comfortable fictions with at least a little taste of what actual reality is like. http://www.newsarama.com/comics/060904-Grant-Batman.html

[d5oimc$32d$1@reader1.panix.com, 2005]
2000s

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PARTICIPANTS – INFORMATION MEETING ON THE CULT PHENOMENON IN THE UNITED STATES http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Cult_Phenomenon_in_the_United_States_%281979%29/Biographical_Sketches, February 5, 1979, 318 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. [Between pages 18-19 of Transcript of Proceedings]. The Cult Phenomenon in the United States (1979), Joint-Congressional Proceedings, Chaired by Senator Bob Dole <br class="br">About

Et le combat cessa faute de combattants.
Don Rodrigue, act IV, scene iii.
Le Cid (1636)

“Standing Armies Commandeered by Cowards,” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=686 WorldNetDaily.com, November 23, 2012. <br class="br">2010s, 2012