Quotes about victory
page 9

Azar Nafisi photo
William Cullen Bryant photo

“The victory of endurance born.”

William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) American romantic poet and journalist

The Battlefield http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16341/16341-h/16341-h.htm#page222 (1839), st. 8

William Westmoreland photo
Werner von Blomberg photo

“While soldiers were winning victories, so-called labor leaders were engaged in high treason.”

Werner von Blomberg (1878–1946) German field marshal

Quoted in "A History of Militarism: Civilian and Military" - Page 430 - by Alfred Vagts - History - 1967

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“When people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.”

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

1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)

Neville Chamberlain photo

“No conqueror returning from a victory on the battlefield has come home adorned with nobler laurels than M and people alike have shown by the manner of their reception their sense of his achievement.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

"A New Dawn", The Times, 1 October 1938; opening words of the leader on the Munich Agreement.
About

Pushyamitra Shunga photo

“Even a very general knowledge of Indian history already shows that any instances of Hindu persecution of Buddhism could never have been more than marginal. After fully seventeen centuries of Buddhism's existence, from the 6 th century BC to the late 12 th century AD, most of it under the rule of Hindu kings, we find Buddhist establishments flourishing all over India. Under king Pushyamitra Shunga, often falsely labelled as a persecutor of Buddhism, important Buddhist centres such as the Sanchi stupa were built. As late as the early 12 th century, the Buddhist monastery Dharmachakrajina Vihara at Sarnath was built under the patronage of queen Kumaradevi, wife of Govindachandra, the Hindu king of Kanauj in whose reign the contentious Rama temple in Ayodhya was built. This may be contrasted with the ruined state of Buddhism in countries like Afghanistan or Uzbekistan after one thousand or even one hundred years of Muslim rule. Indeed, the Muslim chroniclers themselves have described in gleeful detail how they destroyed Buddhism root and branch in the entire Gangetic plain in just a few years after Mohammed Ghori's victory in the second battle of Tarain in 1192. The famous university of Nalanda with its fabulous library burned for weeks. Its inmates were put to the sword except for those who managed to flee. The latter spread the word to other Indian regions where Buddhist monks packed up and left in anticipation of further Muslim conquests. It is apparent that this way, some abandoned Buddhist establishments were taken over by Hindus; but that is an entirely different matter from the forcible occupation or destruction of Buddhist institutions by the foreign invaders.”

Pushyamitra Shunga King of Sunga Dynasty

Koenraad Elst: Religious Cleansing of Hindus, 2004, Agni conference in The Hague, and in: K. Elst The Problem with Secularism, 2007

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)

Mahmud of Ghazni photo

“joke's on you; i actually love being body slammed by one dozen perfect wrestlers. and my mouth isn't filled with bloodm, it's victory wine”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/460673146451161088]
Tweets by year, 2014

Donald J. Trump photo
Viswanathan Anand photo
Atal Bihari Vajpayee photo
Bill Mauldin photo
Sun Myung Moon photo
Muammar Gaddafi photo
Hovhannes Bagramyan photo
Georgy Zhukov photo
Matthew Arnold photo
Susan Sontag photo
Michael Mullen photo

“We cannot kill our way to victory.”

Michael Mullen (1946) U.S. Navy admiral and 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

On NATO in Afghanistan, Washington, D.C., 11 September 2008 http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/09/2008910163836871959.html.

Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Charlie Sheen photo

“I'm on a quest to claim absolute victory on every front.”

Charlie Sheen (1965) American film and television actor

Quote summary in The Los Angeles Times (2011)

Horace Walpole photo
Francis Escudero photo
George W. Bush photo
Emily Dickinson photo
Wilhelm II, German Emperor photo
Norman Angell photo

“What are the fundamental motives that explain the present rivalry of armaments in Europe, notably the Anglo-German? Each nation pleads the need for defence; but this implies that someone is likely to attack, and has therefore a presumed interest in so doing. What are the motives which each State thus fears its neighbors may obey?
They are based on the universal assumption that a nation, in order to find outlets for expanding population and increasing industry, or simply to ensure the best conditions possible for its people, is necessarily pushed to territorial expansion and the exercise of political force against others…. It is assumed that a nation's relative prosperity is broadly determined by its political power; that nations being competing units, advantage in the last resort goes to the possessor of preponderant military force, the weaker goes to the wall, as in the other forms of the struggle for life.
The author challenges this whole doctrine. He attempts to show that it belongs to a stage of development out of which we have passed that the commerce and industry of a people no longer depend upon the expansion of its political frontiers; that a nation's political and economic frontiers do not now necessarily coincide; that military power is socially and economically futile, and can have no relation to the prosperity of the people exercising it; that it is impossible for one nation to seize by force the wealth or trade of another — to enrich itself by subjugating, or imposing its will by force on another; that in short, war, even when victorious, can no longer achieve those aims for which people strive….”

The Great Illusion (1910)

Winston S. Churchill photo
Ashot Nadanian photo

“Learn from each one of your defeats; your losses must be as close to you as your victories.”

Ashot Nadanian (1972) chess player

S'pore Chess News, 15 November 2010 http://www.singaporechessnews.com/nadanian_singapore_goodbye.html

Gautama Buddha photo
John McCain photo

“I was very happy. I thought I would cut my way through life.... victory after victory, [laughing.. ] Well, I adjusted as soon as they carried me into my mother. Half of my victories fell to the ground.. [she pauses].. My mother had victories.”

Agnes Martin (1912–2004) American artist

her candid, weather-beaten face darkens abruptly
Mary Lance, in 'With My Back to the World' a documentary made in 2002; as quoted by Olivia Laing,
Martin claimed she could remember the exact moment of her birth. She had entered the world, she tells Lance, 'as a small figure with a little sword'
after 2000

Isaac McLellan photo

“New England's dead. New England's dead!
On every hill they lie;
On every field of strife, made red
By bloody victory.”

Isaac McLellan (1806–1899) American writer

New England's Dead, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Errol Flynn photo

“This man more than superseded my every expectation I had…if you live with a man under duress (this is before the victory…) he is I think…he will rank in history with some of the greats.”

Errol Flynn (1909–1959) Australian actor

Source: Statement made by Errol Flynn about Fidel Castro in a TV interview on the Canadian TV program Front Page held in 1959. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=filBYa1AJEA

Thomas Fuller photo

“Though blood be the best sauce for victory, yet must it not be more than the meat.”

Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) English churchman and historian

The History of the Holy War (1639), Book I, Ch. 24.

Walter Benjamin photo
T. H. White photo
Halldór Laxness photo
John C. Wright photo
André Maurois photo

“Conquest brings no lasting happiness unless the person conquered was possessed of free will. Only then can there be doubt and anxiety and those continual victories over habit and boredom which produce the keenest pleasures of all. The comely inmates of the harem are rarely loved, for they are prisoners. Inversely, the far too accessible ladies of present-day seaside resorts almost never inspire love, because they are emancipated. Where is love's victory when there is neither veil, modesty, nor self-respect to check its progress? Excessive freedom raises up the transparent walls of an invisible seraglio to surround these easily acquired ladies. Romantic love requires women, not that they should be inaccessible, but that their lives should be lived within the rather narrow limits of religion and convention. These conditions, admirably observed in the Middle-Ages, produced the courtly love of that time. The honoured mistress of the chateau remained within its walls while the knight set out for the Crusades and thought about his lady. In those days a man scarcely ever tried to arouse love in the object of his passion. He resigned himself to loving in silence, or at least without hope. Such frustrated passions are considered by some to be naive and unreal, but to certain sensitive souls this kind of remote admiration is extremely pleasurable, because, being quite subjective, it is better protected against deception and disillusion.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Loving

Manuel Zelaya photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“The victory over Euclidean space was not achieved by isolated individuals, but by a field of young rebels opposed to all absolutes.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 42

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen photo
Alauddin Khalji photo

“They took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000, and children of both sexes, 'more than the pen can enumerate'… In short, the Muhammadan army brought the country to utter ruin, and destroyed the lives of the inhabitants, and plundered the cities, and captured their offspring, so that many temples were deserted and the idols were broken and trodden under foot, the largest of which was one called Somnat, fixed upon stone, polished like a mirror of charming shape and admirable workmanship' Its head was adorned with a crown set with gold and rubies and pearls and other precious stones' and a necklace of large shining pearls, like the belt of Orion, depended from the shoulder towards the side of the body….
'The Muhammadan soldiers plundered all these jewels and rapidly set themselves to demolish the idol. The surviving infidels were deeply affected with grief, and they engaged 'to pay a thousand pieces of gold' as ransom for the idol, but they were indignantly rejected, and the idol was destroyed, and 'its limbs, which were anointed with ambergris and perfumed, were cut off. The fragments were conveyed to Delhi, and the entrance of the Jami' Masjid was paved with them, that people might remember and talk of this brilliant victory.' Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds. Amen! After some time, among the ruins of the temples, a most beautiful jasper-coloured stone was discovered, on which one of the merchants had designed some beautiful figures of fighting men and other ornamental figures of globes, lamps, etc., and on the margin of it were sculptured verses from the Kurdn. This stone was sent as an offering to the shrine of the pole of saints… At that time they were building a lofty octagonal dome to the tomb. The stone was placed at the right of the entrance. "At this time, that is, in the year 707 h. (1307 a. d.), 'Alau-d din is the acknowledged Sultan of this country. On all its borders there are infidels, whom it is his duty to attack in the prosecution of a holy war, and return laden with countless booty."”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

Somnath. Abdu’llah ibn Fazlu’llah of Shiraz (Wassaf) : Tarikh-i-Wassaf (Tazjiyatu’l Amsar Wa Tajriyatu’l Ãsar), in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. III : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 43-44. Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes from The History of India as told by its own Historians

“God, through Jesus Christ, is the victory, and the renewed earth will reflect that glory.”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 110

Paula Modersohn-Becker photo
Theodore Dalrymple photo

“The victory over cruelty is never final, but, like the maintenance of freedom, requires eternal vigilance.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

How—and How Not—to Love Mankind http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_3_urbanities-how_and_how_no.html (Summer 2001).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Ron Paul photo
W. Somerset Maugham photo
Peter Schweizer photo
Gregor Mendel photo

“The victory of Christ gained us the kingdom of grace, the kingdom of heaven. Easter is the sky banner flag, the flag of eternity, the victory blowing over the gates of the Holy City of Jerusalem.”

Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) Silesian scientist and Augustinian friar

Excerpt from a sermon on Easter delivered by Mendel, found in Folia Mendeliana (1966), Volume 1-6, Moravian Museum in Brünn.
Sermon on Easter
Original: Der Sieg Christi hat uns das Reich der Gnade gewonnen, das Himmelreich. Osterfahne wird zur Himmelsfahne, zur Flagge der Ewigkeit, die siegreich weht über den Toren der Heiligen Stadt Jerusalem

William Moulton Marston photo

“If, as psychologists, we follow the analogy of the other biological sciences, we must expect to find normalcy synonymous with maximal efficiency of function. Survival of the fittest means survival of those members of a species whose organisms most successfully resist the encroachments of environmental antagonists, and continue to function with the greatest internal harmony. In the field of emotions, then, why would we alter this expectation? Why should we seek the spectacularly disharmonious emotions, the feelings that reveal a crushing of ourselves by environment, and consider these affective responses as our normal emotions? If a jungle beast is torn and wounded during the course of an ultimately victorious battle, it would be a spurious logic indeed that attributed its victory to its wounds. If a human being be emotionally torn and mentally disorganized by fear or rage during a business battle from which, ultimately, he emerges victorious, it seems equally nonsensical to ascribe his conquering strength to those emotions symptomatic of his temporary weakness and defeat. Victory comes in proportion as fear is banished. Perhaps the battle may be won with some fear still handicapping the victor, but that only means that the winner's maximal strength was not required.”

William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) American psychologist, lawyer, inventor and comic book writer

Source: The Emotions of Normal People (1928), p.2

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax photo

“When the People contend for their Liberty, they seldom get any thing by their Victory but new Masters.”

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician

Of Prerogative, Power and Liberty.
Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Political Thoughts and Reflections

Rory Bremner photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Muhammad photo
Eugene V. Debs photo
Theodore Zeldin photo

“The violent have been victorious for most of history because they kindled the fear with which everyone is born.”

Theodore Zeldin (1933) English academic

An Intimate History of Humanity (1994)

Winston S. Churchill photo

“Historians are apt to judge war ministers less by the victories achieved under their direction than by the political results which flowed from them. Judged by that standard, I am not sure that I shall be held to have done very well.”

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

Quoted by Robert Boothby in Robert Boothy, Recollections of a Rebel (London: Hutchison, 1978), pp. 183–84.
Post-war years (1945–1955)

George W. Bush photo

“Every Iraqi atrocity has confirmed the justice and the urgency of our cause. [applause] Against this enemy we will accept no outcome except complete victory.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

The East Room of the White House, March 28, 2003 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030328-6.html
2000s, 2003

Joseph Goebbels photo

“The war we are fighting until victory or the bitter end is in its deepest sense a war between Christ and Marx.
Christ: the principle of love.
Marx: the principle of hate.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Der Kampf, den wir heute ausfechten bis zum Sieg oder bis zum bitteren Ende, ist im tiefsten Sinne ein Kampf zwischen Christus und Marx.
Christus: das Prinzip der Liebe.
Marx: das Prinzip des Hasses.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Khaled Mashal photo
J.B. Priestley photo
Dejan Stojanovic photo

“Color is the overpowering of black; white – the final victory over black.”

“Color,” p. 64
The Creator (2000), Sequence: “A Smiling Sky”

Prito Reza photo
Neil Kinnock photo

“The roots of defeat which were put down by some of the elements of our party in the two or three years after 1980 made victory difficult to achieve.”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

The Times, 10 June, 1983, p. 1.
On the Labour Party's defeat in the 1983 general election.

Rudolf Rocker photo
Julian Simon photo

“This increase in the world's population represents humanity's victory against death.”

Julian Simon (1932–1998) American economist

"The State of Humanity: Steadily Improving," Cato Institute Policy Report, September/October 1995 http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/pr-so-js.html

Albert Pike photo

“War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory.”

Albert Pike (1809–1891) Confederate States Army general and Freemason

This is more commonly attributed to Georges Clemenceau, and the earliest published attribution to Pike is in 2008, without citation of sources.
Misattributed

Horace Mann photo

“Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

Address at Antioch College (1859)

James Thomas Fields photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
George Rogers Clark photo

“Never was a person more mortified than I was at this time, to see so fair an opportunity to push a victory; Detroit lost for want of a few men.”

George Rogers Clark (1752–1818) American general

After aborting plans to raid Fort Detroit due to a lack of enlistments (1779), quoted in [Wilson, George R., Thornbrough, Gayle, The Buffalo Trace, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis, 1946, Indiana Historical Society Publications, volume 15, number 2, 189]

Abd al-Karim Qasim photo

“Almost all medieval Muslim historians credit their heroes with desecration of Hindu idols and/or destruction of Hindu temples. The picture that emerges has the following components, depending upon whether the iconoclast was in a hurry on account of Hindu resistance or did his work at leisure after a decisive victory:
1. The idols were mutilated or smashed or burnt or melted down if they were made of precious metals.
2. Sculptures in relief on walls and pillars were disfigured or scraped away or torn down.
3. Idols of stone and inferior metals or their pieces were taken away, sometimes by cartloads, to be thrown down before the main mosque in (a) the metropolis of the ruling Muslim sultan and (b) the holy cities of Islam, particularly Mecca, Medina and Baghdad.
4. There were instances of idols being turned into lavatory seats or handed over to butchers to be used as weights while selling meat.
5. Brahmin priests and other holy men in and around the temple were molested or murdered.
6. Sacred vessels and scriptures used in worship were defiled and scattered or burnt.
7. Temples were damaged or despoiled or demolished or burnt down or converted into mosques with some structural alterations or entire mosques were raised on the same sites mostly with temple materials.
8. Cows were slaughtered on the temple sites so that Hindus could not use them again.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume I (1990)

Clive Staples Lewis photo
John Sterling photo

“Theeeee Yankees win! Theeeee Yankees win!”

John Sterling (1938) Sports broadcaster

At the conclusion of a Yankees victory, Rieber, Anthony. (October 11, 2012). John Sterling, Michael Kay wish they had trademarked their calls. https://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/anthony-rieber/john-sterling-michael-kay-wish-they-had-trademarked-their-calls-1.4103713 Newsday.

Enoch Powell photo
John the Evangelist photo

“Every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

1 John 5:4 NLT
First Letter of John

Adolf Eichmann photo
Rutherford B. Hayes photo