Quotes about victory
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Romain Rolland photo

“My blood shall cement the victory of the future.”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Journey's End: The Burning Bush (1911)
Context: Christophe returned to the Divine conflict.... How his own fight, how all the conflicts of men were lost in that gigantic battle, wherein the suns rain down like flakes of snow tossing on the wind!... He had laid bare his soul. And, just as in those dreams in which one hovers in space, he felt that he was soaring above himself, he saw himself from above, in the general plan of the world; and the meaning of his efforts — the price of his suffering, were revealed to him at a glance. His struggles were a part of the great fight of the worlds. His overthrow was a momentary episode, immediately repaired. Just as he fought for all, so all fought for him. They shared his trials, he shared their glory.
"Companions, enemies, walk over me, crush me, let me feel the cannons which shall win victory pass over my body! I do not think of the iron which cuts deep into my flesh, I do not think of the foot that tramples down my head, I think of my Avenger, the Master, the Leader of the countless army. My blood shall cement the victory of the future...."

Romain Rolland photo

“Epic shouts passed, and trumpet calls, and tempestuous sounds borne upon sovereign rhythms. For in that sonorous soul everything took shape in sound. It sang of light. It sang of darkness, sang of life and death. It sang for those who were victorious in battle. It sang for himself who was conquered and laid low. It sang. All was song. It was nothing but song.”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Journey's End: The Burning Bush (1911)
Context: God was not to him the impassive Creator, a Nero from his tower of brass watching the burning of the City to which he himself has set fire. God was fighting. God was suffering. Fighting and suffering with all who fight and for all who suffer. For God was Life, the drop of light fallen into the darkness, spreading out, reaching out, drinking up the night. But the night is limitless, and the Divine struggle will never cease: and none can know how it will end. It was a heroic symphony wherein the very discords clashed together and mingled and grew into a serene whole! Just as the beech-forest in silence furiously wages war, so Life carries war into the eternal peace.
The wars and the peace rang echoing through Christophe. He was like a shell wherein the ocean roars. Epic shouts passed, and trumpet calls, and tempestuous sounds borne upon sovereign rhythms. For in that sonorous soul everything took shape in sound. It sang of light. It sang of darkness, sang of life and death. It sang for those who were victorious in battle. It sang for himself who was conquered and laid low. It sang. All was song. It was nothing but song.

Henri Barbusse photo

“I believe, in spite of all, in truth's victory.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXII - Light
Context: I believe, in spite of all, in truth's victory. I believe in the momentous value, hereafter inviolable, of those few truly fraternal men in all the countries of the world, who, in the oscillation of national egoisms let loose, stand up and stand out, steadfast as the glorious statues of Right and Duty.

E.M. Forster photo

“On they go — an invincible army, yet not a victorious one. The aristocrats, the elect, the chosen, the Best People — all the words that describe them are false, and all attempts to organize them fail.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

What I Believe (1938)
Context: On they go — an invincible army, yet not a victorious one. The aristocrats, the elect, the chosen, the Best People — all the words that describe them are false, and all attempts to organize them fail. Again and again Authority, seeing their value, has tried to net them and to utilize them as the Egyptian Priesthood or the Christian Church or the Chinese Civil Service or the Group Movement, or some other worthy stunt. But they slip through the net and are gone; when the door is shut, they are no longer in the room; their temple, as one of them remarked, is the holiness of the Heart's affections, and their kingdom, though they never possess it, is the wide-open world.
With this type of person knocking about, and constantly crossing one's path if one has eyes to see or hands to feel, the experiment of earthly life cannot be dismissed as a failure. But it may well be hailed as a tragedy, the tragedy being that no device has been found by which these private decencies can be transmitted to public affairs. As soon as people have power they go crooked and sometimes dotty as well, because the possession of power lifts them into a region where normal honesty never pays.

Richard M. DeVos photo
Ho Chi Minh photo
Pierre Joseph Proudhon photo
Vyacheslav Molotov photo
Barack Obama photo
Leon Trotsky photo
Cornelius Castoriadis photo
Ioannis Kapodistrias photo

“Victory shall be ours, but has to be in our hearts only the Greek sentiment. Anyone ready to listen servily to the foreign [powers] is a traitor.”

Ioannis Kapodistrias (1776–1831) Greek politician and diplomat, first Governor of the modern Greek state

On a conversation with Georgakis Mavromichalis after his arrival (1828), during the Greek War of Independence.

In Georgios Tertsetis, "Kolokotronis' Memoirs", Apologa about Capodistrias

Napoleon I of France photo

“Shamanism is a journey of return. A warrior returns victorious to the spirit, having descended into hell. And from hell he brings trophies. Understanding is one of his trophies.”

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "The Power of Silence" (Chapter 18)

Howard Zinn photo

“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, p. 270.
Source: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
Context: To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

Erich Segal photo
Rick Riordan photo

“Great victory requires great risk.
-Hera”

Source: The Lost Hero

Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Charles Bukowski photo

“I am a series of small victories and large defeats.”

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Tom Clancy photo
Jim Butcher photo
Ernest Hemingway photo

“War is not won by victory.”

Source: A Farewell to Arms

Terry Goodkind photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Joyce Meyer photo
Neal Shusterman photo

“Small victories are bet­ter than none.”

Source: Unwind

Charles Darwin photo

“… for the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Source: The Origin of Species

Joel Osteen photo
Stephen Colbert photo

“I guess 14% plus Jesus equals victory”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor
Dylan Thomas photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem; it merely creates new and more complicated ones.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Three Ways of Meeting Oppression (1958)
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Context: A second way that oppressed people sometimes deal with oppression is to resort to physical violence and corroding hatred. Violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem; it merely creates new and more complicated ones.

Gail Carson Levine photo
Stephen King photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Alison Goodman photo

“There was a saying that a man's true character was revealed in defeat. I thought it was also revealed in victory.”

Alison Goodman (1966) Australian science-fiction writer

Source: Eon: Dragoneye Reborn

Edward Gibbon photo
Glen Cook photo

“There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies.”

Glen Cook (1944) American fiction writer

Source: Chronicles of the Black Company

Giordano Bruno photo

“They dispute not in order to find or even to seek Truth, but for victory, and to appear the more learned and strenuous upholders of a contrary opinion. Such persons should be avoided by all who have not a good breastplate of patience.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

"Introductory Epistle : Argument of the Third Dialogue"
On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (1584)
Context: After it hath been seen how the obstinate and the ignorant of evil disposition are accustomed to dispute, it will further be shewn how disputes are wont to conclude; although others are so wary that without losing their composure, but with a sneer, a smile, a certain discreet malice, that which they have not succeeded in proving by argument — nor indeed can it be understood by themselves — nevertheless by these tricks of courteous disdain they pretend to have proven, endeavouring not only to conceal their own patently obvious ignorance but to cast it on to the back of their adversary. For they dispute not in order to find or even to seek Truth, but for victory, and to appear the more learned and strenuous upholders of a contrary opinion. Such persons should be avoided by all who have not a good breastplate of patience.

Max Lucado photo
Elie Wiesel photo

“There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Attributed in The Little Book of Romanian Wisdom (2011) edited by Diana Doroftei and Matthew Cross

Joel Osteen photo

“We may get knocked down on the outside, but the key to living in victory is to learn how to get up on the inside.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Michel De Montaigne photo
John Steinbeck photo
Anne Rice photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Julian Barnes photo
Stephen King photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Karen Marie Moning photo
William Faulkner photo
Frederick Buechner photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
William Faulkner photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Philippa Gregory photo
Paulo Coelho photo

“If I believe I will win, then victory will believe in me.”

Source: Aleph

Adolf Hitler photo
George MacDonald photo
Mary E. Pearson photo
John Steinbeck photo
Paulo Coelho photo

“Only he who gives up is defeated. Everyone else is victorious.”

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), About Defeat

Terry Goodkind photo
Jerome K. Jerome photo

“Jesus was victorious not because he never flinched, talked back, or questioned, but having flinched, talked back, and questioned, he remained faithful.”

p. 168 https://books.google.com/books?id=sUTZCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA11&dq=%22My+deepest+awareness+of+myself+is+that+I+am+deeply+loved+by+Jesus+Christ+and+I+have+done+nothing+to+earn+it+or+deserve+it.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7yeaQ9ZTkAhUOnFkKHUBmB1sQ6AEwAHoECAAQAg#v=onepage&q=%22My%20deepest%20awareness%20of%20myself%20is%20that%20I%20am%20deeply%20loved%20by%20Jesus%20Christ%20and%20I%20have%20done%20nothing%20to%20earn%20it%20or%20deserve%20it.%22&f=false
1990s, The Ragamuffin Gospel (1990)
Source: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

“An ongoing relationship with God through His Word is essential to the Christian's consistent victory!”

Beth Moore (1957) American evangelist

Source: Believing God

George Eliot photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
Harry Truman photo
Bernhard Schlink photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Robert Greene photo
Joel Osteen photo
Brené Brown photo

“Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both; it’s engaging. It’s being all in.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Winston S. Churchill photo

“In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Good Will.”

Post-war years (1945–1955)
Source: The Second World War, Volume I : The Gathering Storm (1948) Moral of the Work, p. ix http://books.google.de/books?id=HzlT3t05OHoC&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q&f=false

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“We're more concerned about our own "victory" over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve God's heart.”

Jerry Bridges (1929–2016) American writer

Source: The Pursuit of Holiness

Charles Bukowski photo

“The best way to spell victory? K-I-L-L.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Surrender

Thomas Hobbes photo
Terry Goodkind photo

“Wizard's Eighth Rule
Talga Vassternich.
(Deserve Victory)”

Source: Naked Empire

Jenny Han photo

“Victory is a thousand times sweeter when you're the underdog.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: The Summer I Turned Pretty

Victor Hugo photo
Gustav Stresemann photo
Leszek Kolakowski photo
James A. Garfield photo

“In these facts we discover the cause of the popular discontent and outbreaks which have so frequently threatened the stability of the British throne and the peace of the English people. As early as 1770 Lord Chatham said, 'By the end of this century, either the Parliament must be reformed from within, or it will be reformed with a vengeance from without.' The disastrous failure of Republicanism in France delayed the fulfillment of his prophecy; but when, in 1832, the people were on the verge of revolt, the government was reluctantly compelled to pass the celebrated Reform Bill, which has taken its place in English history beside Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights. It equalized the basis of representation, and extended the suffrage to the middle class; and though the property qualification practically excluded the workingman, a great step upward had been taken, a concession had been made which must be followed by others. The struggle is again going on. Its omens are not doubtful. The great storm through which American liberty has just passed gave a temporary triumph to the enemies of popular right in England. But our recent glorious triumph is the signal of disaster to tyranny, and victory for the people. The liberal party in England are jubilant, and will never rest until the ballot, that 'silent vindicator of liberty', is in the hand of the workingman, and the temple of English liberty rests on the broad foundation of popular suffrage. Let us learn from this, that suffrage and safety, like liberty and union, are one and inseparable.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)