
Source: Between Man and Man (1965), p. 147
Source: Island
Source: Between Man and Man (1965), p. 147
"The Contest in America," Fraser’s Magazine (February 1862); later published in Dissertations and Discussions (1868), vol.1 p. 26
Context: War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.
Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 81
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Rifles (1988)
“The more man learned, the more he realized he did not know.”
Source: The Lost Symbol
“In a man to man fight, the winner is he who has one more round within himself.”
Den Kampf Mann gegen Mann gewinnt bei gleichwertigen Gegnern, wer eine Patrone mehr im Lauf hat.
Source: Infanterie greift an (1937), p. 62.