Quotes about combat
page 22

José Maria Eça de Queiroz photo

“The Englishman without his tea fights only half-heartedly.”

O Inglês, sem chá, bate-se frouxamente.
"Afeganistão e Irlanda"; "Afghanistan and Ireland" p. 58.
Cartas de Inglaterra (1879–82)

Marjorie Dannenfelser photo
Max Brooks photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
David Lange photo

“We are an enemy of the nuclear threat and we are an enemy of testing nuclear weapons in the South Pacific. New Zealand did not buy into this fight. France put agents into New Zealand. France put spies into New Zealand. France lets off bombs in the Pacific. France puts its President in the Pacific to crow about it.”

David Lange (1942–2005) New Zealand politician and 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand

Referring to the Bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.
Source: M. King, Death of the Rainbow Warrior (1986), p. 200.

Muhammad photo

“I heard Allah's Apostle saying, "The Jews will fight with you, and you will be given victory over them so that a stone will say, 'O Muslim! There is a Jew behind me; kill him!"”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Umar, in Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 56, Number 791
Sunni Hadith

Miguel de Unamuno photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo

“There was a time when people listened to me because I showed them how to give fight to the British without arms when they had no arms and the British Government was fully equipped and organised for an armed fight. But today I am told that my non-violence can be of no avail against the communal madness and, therefore, people should arm themselves for self-defence. If this is true, it has to be admitted that our thirty years of nonviolent practice was an utter waste of time. We should have from the beginning trained ourselves in the use of arms. But I do not agree that our thirty years' probation in nonviolence has been utterly wasted. It was due to our non-violence, defective though it was, that we were able to bear up under the heaviest repression and the message of independence penetrated every nook and corner of India. But as our non-violence was the nonviolence of the weak, the leaven did not spread. Had we adopted non-violence as the weapon of the strong, because we realised that it was more effective than any other weapon, in fact the mightiest force in the world, we would have made use of its full potency and not have discarded it as soon as the fight against the British was over or we were in a position to wield conventional weapons. But as I have already said, we adopted it out of our helplessness. If we had the atom bomb, we would have used it against the British.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Speech (16 June 1947) as the official date for Indian independence approached (15 August 1947), as quoted in Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase (1958) https://books.google.com/books?id=sswBAAAAMAAJ&q=%22+I+have+already+said,+we+adopted+it+out+of+our+helplessness%22&dq=%22+I+have+already+said,+we+adopted+it+out+of+our+helplessness%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6ydqTtK7LAhUI4D4KHW3-DwEQ6AEIHTAA by Pyarelal Nayyar, p. 326 http://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/mahatma-gandhi-volume-ten.pdf
1940s

Halldór Laxness photo
Roger Scruton photo
Richard Stallman photo
Adlai Stevenson photo

“Because we believe in the free mind we are also fighting those who, in the name of anti-Communism, would assail the community of freedom itself.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

As quoted in Portrait — Adlai E. Stevenson : Politician, Diplomat, Friend (1965) by Alden Whitman

Immortal Technique photo
Coventry Patmore photo
Jacques Lipchitz photo
Francis Escudero photo

“The Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice should immediately and without delay get in touch with their counterparts and demand the attendance of the four witnesses. Such demand is covered by the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) which calls not only for Respect for Law but the obligation to make available the US personnel for investigative or judicial proceedings. As worded in Article V, "US military authorities shall, upon formal notification by the Philippine authorities and without delay, make such personnel available to those authorities in time for any investigative or judicial proceedings." The VFA clearly states that the Philippines has criminal jurisdiction over US soldiers involved in a crime in the country, and it is a matter of invoking it with speed and conviction. The VFA, undoubtedly, is one sided and as such we must always insist and be vigilant with what is accorded us as a matter of sovereign right in that treaty. This is incident calls for the Philippine authorities’ and the Filipinos’ righteous indignation to fight for custody of the suspect and demand for the physical availability of the four American witnesses. We cannot just sit idly by and watch while our laws are being subverted. If we cannot defend, protect nor assist our fellow Filipino right here in our own soil, what chilling message do we get out there to our people and especially to those who are outside Philippine soils? We cannot begrudge the US for acting to protect the interests of its nationals and its interests. Our own officials should also, with the same fervor, do the same. This is why I continue my call for the review of the VFA for clearer, stronger and stricter stipulations which are mutually beneficial to both parties in every step of the way.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2014, December 16). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10152798060815610/
2014, Facebook

Samuel R. Delany photo
Leslie Feist photo

“I know more than I knew before
I didn't rest I didn't stop
Did we fight or did we talk.”

Leslie Feist (1976) Canadian musician

"I Feel It All"
The Reminder (2007)

Hillary Clinton photo
Wilhelm Liebknecht photo

“All who are weary and heavy laden; all who suffer under injustice; all who suffer from the outrages of the existing bourgeois society; all who have in them the feeling of the worth of humanity, look to us, turn hopefully to us, as the only party that can bring rescue and deliverance. And if we, the opponents of this unjust world of violence, suddenly reach out the hand of brotherhood to it, conclude alliances with its representatives, invite our comrades to go hand in hand with the enemy whose misdeeds have driven the masses into our camp, what confusion must result in their minds! … It must be that for the hundreds and thousands, for the millions that have sought salvation under our banner, it was all a colossal mistake for them to come to us. If we are not different from the others, then we are not the right ones – the Savior is yet to come; and the Social Democracy was a false Messiah, no better than the other false ones! Just in this fact lies our strength, that we are not like the others, and that we are not only not like the others, and that we are not simply different from the others, but that we are their deadly enemy, who have sworn to storm and demolish the Bastile of Capitalism, whose defenders all those others are. Therefore we are only strong when we are alone. This is not to say that we are to individualise or to isolate ourselves. We have never lacked for company, and we never shall so long as the fight lasts. On the essentially true but literally false phrase about a “single reactionary mass,” the Social Democracy has never believed since it passed from the realm of theory to that of practice. We know that the individual members and divisions of the “single reactionary mass” are in conflict with each other, and we have always used these conflicts for our purposes. We have used opponents against opponents, but have never allowed them to use us.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Buenaventura Durruti photo

“We make war and revolution at the same time. Militiamen are fighting for the conquest of the land, the factories, bread, and culture … the pickaxe and the shovel are as important as the rifle. Comrades, we will win the war!”

Buenaventura Durruti (1896–1936) Spanish anarchist

Interview (3 October 1936), as quoted in Durruti in the Spanish Revolution (1996) by Abel Paz, as translated by Chuck W. Morse (2007), p. 536

“The chroniclers of the early Turkish rulers of India take pride in affirming that Qutbuddin Aibak was a killer of lakhs of infidels. Leave aside enthusiastic killers like Alauddin Khalji and Muhammad bin Tughlaq, even the "kind-hearted" Firoz Tughlaq killed more than a lakh Bengalis when he invaded their country. Timur Lang or Tamerlane says he killed a hundred thousand infidel prisoners of war in Delhi. He built victory pillars from severed heads at many places. These were acts of sultans. The nobles were not lagging behind. One Shaikh Daud Kambu is said to have killed 20,000 with his dagger. The Bahmani sultans of Gulbarga and Bidar considered it meritorious to kill a hundred thousand Hindu men, women and children every year….. The rite of Jauhar killed the women, the tradition of not deserting the field of battle made Rajputs and others die fighting in large numbers. When Malwa was attacked (1305), its Raja is said to have possessed 40,000 horse and 100,000 foot.43 After the battle, "so far as human eye could see, the ground was muddy with blood"…. Under Muhammad Tughlaq, wars and rebellions knew no end. His expeditions to Bengal, Sindh and the Deccan, as well as ruthless suppression of twenty-two rebellions, meant only depopulation in the thirteenth and first half of the fourteenth century. For one thing, in spite of constant efforts no addition of territory could be made by Turkish rulers from 1210 to 1296; for another the Turkish rulers were more ruthless in war and less merciful in peace. Hence the extirpating massacres of Balban, and the repeated attacks by others on regions already devastated but not completely subdued….. Mulla Daud of Bidar vividly describes the war between Muhammad Shah Bahmani and the Vijayanagar King in 1366 in which "Farishtah computes the victims on the Hindu side alone as numbering no less than half a million." Muhammad also devastated the Karnatak region with vengeance….. Under Akbar and Jahangir "five or six hundred thousand human beings were killed," says emperor Jahangir. The figures given by these killers and their chroniclers may be a few thousand less or a few thousand more, but what bred this ambition of cutting down human beings without compunction was the Muslim theory, practice and spirit of Jihad, as spelled out in Muslim scriptures and rules of administration.”

Ch 3
Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999)

Julia Gillard photo

“I thought that, that side of [Rudd's] character – the very anxious, 'I must be in the media, I must shine in Parliament today' – would fall away when he became Labor leader and there was no more fighting for the spotlight; the spotlight was well and truly on him.”

Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia

The Killing Season, Episode one: The Prime Minister and his Loyal Deputy (2006–09)

Charles Krauthammer photo
Sukarno photo
Stanley A. McChrystal photo
Adam Smith photo
Heinrich Müller photo
Anastas Mikoyan photo

“Like Lenin Comrade Stalin is a leader of a higher type. He is a mountain eagle, without fear in the fight, who boldly leads the bolshevik party on unexplored roads toward the total victory of Communism.”

Anastas Mikoyan (1895–1978) Russian revolutionary and Soviet statesman

Statement of 13 March 1939, as quoted in "Facts on Communism" (1960) by the United States Congress, p. 157

Paul Graham photo
Matt Hughes photo
Kate Bush photo

“He's big and pink, and not like me.
He sees no light.
He sees no reason for the fighting…”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Dreaming (1982)

Seneca the Younger photo

“If any one is angry with you, meet his anger by returning benefits for it: a quarrel which is only taken up on one side falls to the ground: it takes two men to fight.”
Irascetur aliquis: tu contra beneficiis prouoca; cadit statim simultas ab altera parte deserta; nisi paria non pugnant.

De Ira (On Anger): Book 2, cap. 34, line 5.
Moral Essays

Bernard Cornwell photo
Sri Aurobindo photo
Erik Naggum photo
Herbert Marcuse photo
George William Russell photo

“We may fight against what is wrong, but if we allow ourselves to hate, that is to insure our spiritual defeat and our likeness to what we hate.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

As quoted in The Living Torch, A.E. (1937) by Monk Gibbon

Bert Williams photo

“Bert Williams has done more for the race than I have. He has smiled his way into people's hearts. I have been obliged to fight my way.”

Bert Williams (1874–1922) American comedian and actor

Booker T. Washington http://www.duboislc.org/ShadesOfBlack/BertWms.html
About

A.E. Housman photo
Peggy Noonan photo
Greg Abbott photo
Fausto Cercignani photo

“When one must fight, one had better do it without hesitation, according to his own nature.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni

Winston S. Churchill photo

“War is horrible, but slavery is worse, and you may be sure that the British people would rather go down fighting than live in servitude.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Interview https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/01/winston-churchill-new-statesman-archive with Kingsley Martin for the New Statesman (7 January 1939)
The 1930s

Warren G. Harding photo
Muhammad photo
Hillary Clinton photo
Cornstalk photo
Ai Weiwei photo
Adolf Hitler photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Albert Speer photo
Theodore Kaczynski photo
Neil Diamond photo

“Girl, I don't want to fight,
I'm a little bit wrong,
And you're a little bit right.
I said, girl, you know that it's true,
It's a little bit me,
And it's a little bit you too.”

Neil Diamond (1941) American singer-songwriter

A Little Bit Me, performed by The Monkees (1967)
Song lyrics

Bernard Cornwell photo
Matthijs Maris photo

“I recollect after the war in '71 [in Paris, where he stayed then and was fighting against the German] there were some debts to pay of course: what had I to do? I said to Wisselingh [Dutch art-dealer] who was with Goupil, 'tell them that I'll take them back later on.' I've never been able to do so, for one Van Gogh [probably Vincent, then art-seller at Goupil], his partner, gave me 200 francs, someone bought it for 350, and sold it in America for 700 pounds. He had asked Wisselingh how long it had taken me to do [make] it; he said a week, so I was the chap for him; no wonder he was always talking making fortune, fancy 100 pounds per day, make some more or this sort: do it only for a year. So I had to commit suicides upon suicides [he means, making salable paintings]: what did it matter to him or anyone else? Someone said once to me: 'You must have somebody fool enough to say, here is money for you, and go your own way': that is the very thing one may not do. There is always someone telling you how to set about, and then come the schools telling you that it is not allowed to be one's self, but that one has to be a Roman or Greek, or imitate what they have performed..”

Matthijs Maris (1839–1917) Dutch painter

in a letter to David Croal Thomson (1907), as cited in: The Brothers Maris (James – Matthew – William), ed. Charles Holme; text: D.C. Thomson https://ia800204.us.archive.org/1/items/cu31924016812756/cu31924016812756.pdf; publishers, Offices of 'The Studio', London - Paris, 1907, p. BMxvii

Phil Brooks photo

“Punk: Don't stop on account of me. [Starts singing "Happy Birthday" to Rey's daughter, who is scared]. Rey, you look scared, but I assure you I'm not out here to hurt you, and I'm not out here to hurt your family. In fact, I'm happy that we're all here – my family and yours. And today's a big day, we all need to celebrate the occasion, and it doesn't get any bigger that WrestleMania, Rey, so that's exactly why I wanna challenge you to a match at WrestleMania. I also wanna challenge you to a match tonight. And I don't mean later in the show, Rey. I mean now. I mean, as in, right now!
Rey: Come on Punk. This ain't the time
Punk: Don't be sad. Aaliyah, since it's your birthday, sweet, innocent little Aaliyah, I'll tell you what. As my birthday present to you, I'll let you shut your eyes while I reduce your daddy to tears and make him beg for my mercy. And Dominik. You're such… you're all grown up now, aren't you? We watched you grow up before our very eyes, but I don't think you ever heard your father squeal like a pig from somebody repeatedly stomping his surgically repaired knees, so it's okay if you plug your ears. And beautiful, voluptuous Angie. Now I'm sure you and your loving husband Rey have shared the best of times. But look at me. I promise you, after I do what I'm going to do to your husband, it will be the worst of times. So feel free to cup your hand over your mouth to muffle the screams. What's the matter, Rey? Don't you wanna fight me in front of your family? No? Are you afraid that your family's gonna watch you get hurt? You're a coward! I know it; deep down inside, Dominik knows it; your wife has always known; and now on her 9th birthday, your sweet innocent little Aaliyah knows it. All these people here know it, Rey, you're a coward! What's it gonna take? Huh, Rey? Where's Giant-Killer Rey Mysterio at? [Crowd chants "619"] Where's your 619, huh, Rey? Where's the ultimate underdog, Rey? Rey, where's your machismo? Where's your machismo, Rey?! I'll tell you where, Rey. Your machismo, your courage – you never had it. What's it gonna take, Rey? Huh? Rey, I'll even drop down to your level, Rey. [Gets down on his knees] Come on, Rey! So, you're turning me down? You won't fight me? What's it gonna take, Rey? [Gets up] What's it gonna take, Rey?! Not now?! Not now?! [Slaps Rey across the face] [Rey then walks away very frustrated with his family. ] Come on, Rey! Come on, now! There he is, ladies and gentlemen! There's your superhero!
Striker: He's got no alternative but to protect his family.
Punk: Watch him take his walk of shame! But one more thing, sweet little princess Aaliyah… [Sings "Happy Birthday" to her in a disturbing type way. ]”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

March 12, 2010
Friday Night SmackDown

Gao Xingjian photo

“A good man never fights with a woman.”

Gao Xingjian (1940) Chinese novelist and playwright

Source: Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather (2005), p. 103

David Lloyd George photo
Margaret Cho photo
Richard Holbrooke photo

“Dayton shook the leadership elite of post-Cold War Europe. The Europeans were grateful to the United States for the leading the effort that finally ended the war in Bosnia, but some European officials were embarassed that American involvement had been necessary. Jacque Poos's 1991 assertion that Europe's "hour had dawned" lay in history's dustbin, alongside James Baker's view that we had no dog in that fight. "One cannot call it an American peace", French Foreign Minister de Charette told the press, "even if President Clinton and the Americans have tried to pull the blanket over to their side. The fact is that the Americans looked at this affair in ex-Yugoslavia from a great distance for nearly four years and basically blocked the progression of things." But de Charette also acknowledged that "Europe as such was not present, and this, it is true, was a failure of the European Union." Prime Minister Alain Juppé, after praising the Dayton agreement, could not resist adding, "Of course, it resembles like a twin the European plan we presented eighteen months ago" - when he was Foreign Minister. Agence France-Presse reported that many European diplomats were "left smarting" at Dayton. In an article clearly inspired by someone at the French Foreign Ministry, Le Figaro said that "Richard Holbrooke, the American mediator, did not leave his European collegues with good memories from the air base at Dayton." They quoted an unnamed Franch diplomat as saying, "He flatters, he lies, he humiliates: he is a sort of brutal and schizophrenic Mazarin." President Chirac's national security assistant, Jean-David Levitte, called to apologize for this comment, saying it did not represent the views of his boss. I replied that such minidramas were inevitable given the pressures and frustrations we faced at Dayton and were inconsequential considering that the war was over.”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p. 318

George S. Patton photo

“Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

This is cited to Patton in Patton's Principles : A Handbook for Managers Who Mean It! (1982) by Porter B. Williamson as well as Leadership (1990) by William Safire and Leonard Safir, p. 47, but is also cited to Erwin Rommel‎ from his Infanterie Greift An [Infantry Attacks] (1937) in World War II : The Definitive Visual History (2009) by Richard Holmes, p. 128, and Timelines of History (2011) by DK Publishing, p. 392
Disputed

Václav Havel photo
Charles Stross photo

“Had enough of my poetry yet? That’s why they pay me to fight demons instead.”

Overtime (2009)
The Laundry Files, The Rhesus Chart (2014)

Josh Hawley photo
Ted Cruz photo
Tertullian photo

“He who flees will fight again.”
Qui fugiebat, rursus sibi proeliabitur.

Tertullian (155–220) Christian theologian

De Fuga in Persecutione, 10

Taslima Nasrin photo
Barrett Brown photo

“When we start fighting crime by any means necessary we become guilty of the same hypocrisy as law enforcement agencies throughout history that break the rules to get the villains, and so become villains themselves.”

Barrett Brown (1981) American journalist, essayist and satirist

The Guardian, "Barrett Brown statement: 'This is not the rule of law, it is the rule of law enforcement'" http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/22/barrett-brown-hacking-sentencing-full-statement-text, 22 January 2015.

Wesley Clark photo
Hemu photo
Christopher Titus photo
Alexander Suvorov photo

“Fight the enemy with the weapons he lacks.”

Alexander Suvorov (1730–1800) Russian military commander

Quoted in Ossipov, "Suvorov," 1945.

Peter F. Drucker photo
Anton Chekhov photo

“Mankind has conceived history as a series of battles; hitherto it has considered fighting as the main thing in life.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

Michael Bloomberg photo
Ernest Bevin photo
William Saroyan photo
James O'Keefe photo
V. P. Singh photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Katherine Heigl photo
Robert Jordan photo
Mahathir bin Mohamad photo
Homér photo

“Bird-signs!
Fight for your country—that is the best, the only omen!”

XII. 243 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Joseph Strutt photo
Kameron Hurley photo

“I will fight like a lion to retain my title.”

Rafael Márquez (boxer) (1975) Mexican boxer

Márquez remarks on his upcoming bout against Silence Mabuzahttp://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20060804/NEWS/108040058

Robert Graves photo

“Kill if you must, but never hate:
Man is but grass and hate is blight,
The sun will scorch you soon or late,
Die wholesome then, since you must fight.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"Hate Not, Fear Not".
Country Sentiment (1920)

Halle Berry photo

“Actors always have to fight for the good parts. There are so few good roles written for women each year, and when one is written like this every actress in town covets the role.”

Halle Berry (1966) American actress

On her role in the film Things We Lost In The Fire — Western Mail staff (February 1, 2008) "From the grave to the cradle", Western Mail.

Vincent Van Gogh photo
Lupe Fiasco photo
Wilhelm Liebknecht photo
David Miscavige photo

“Against a strong kicker there are two ways to fight. If you are experienced, just go into their center and hit. But if you aren't, then back up. Each time the opponent misses, he will lose one degree of confidence. After a while you have more chances.”

Wong Shun Leung (1935–1997) martial artist

Wong Shun Leung's Ways to Beat a Good Kicker
Kicking and Kneeing
Source: Comments From Wong Shun Leung and Tsui Shan Ting, by Ray Van Raamsdonk http://www.springtimesong.com/wcqanda.htm

Mark Manson photo

“I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the process. I was in love with not the fight but only the victory.
And life doesn’t work that way.”

Mark Manson (1984) American writer and blogger

Source: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), Chapter 2, “Happiness Is a Problem” (p. 40)