“Your back's against the wall and you're almost done for – it's Dunkirk all over again! (The Apprentice (To Paul, the ex-army Lieutenant before he is fired.)).”
The Apprentice, Series 3
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Alan Sugar 23
British business magnate, media personality, and political … 1947Related quotes
“When your back is against the wall, there's only one way to go and that's forward.”
On Rajiv Gandhi, reported in Steven R. Weisman, "India a Year Later: Gandhi Leaving His Mark", The New York Times (October 30, 1985), A-1.
Back to the Army Again, refrain (1894).
The Seven Seas (1896)
Pt. II, ch. 2, pg 123
The Quiet American (1955)
Toutes choses sont dites déjà; mais comme personne n'écoute, il faut toujours recommencer.
Le Traité du Narcisse https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Trait%C3%A9_du_narcisse (The Treatise of the Narcissus)
Nothing is said that has not been said before. -- Terence
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in (August 25, 2016)
“It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire.”
Nam tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet.
Book I, epistle xviii, line 84
Epistles (c. 20 BC and 14 BC)
The 1957 Ford Almanac has the quote "It's too late to read the handwriting on the wall when your back's up against it", attributed to "Anon." The quote appeared in several variations afterwards, for instance in an essay by Meredith Thring in Nature Magazine in 1965. It began to be attributed without context to Stevenson in the 1970s. According to "Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy" by Porter McKeever (p. 566), Stevenson made this remark "with increasing frequency in the final months of his life"; but Stevenson died in 1965 and this book does not give a precise reference. Absent better attestation, Stevenson either used the quote from elsewhere or the association with Stevenson is a mistake.
Misattributed