“Except for times Fred worked with real professional dancers like Cyd Charisse, it was a twenty five year war.”

Robert Benchley in "Hail to the King!!" The New Yorker, November 29, 1930, pp. 33-36. (M).

Gene Kelly quoted in Shipman, David. The Great Movie Stars, The Golden Years. Crown Publishers, New York. 1970. pp. 25-29 as referenced in Billman, Larry: Fred Astaire - A Bio-bibliography, Greenwood Press, Connecticut, 1997. ISBN 0-313-29010-5 p. 351.

P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster in Joy in the Morning (1947).

Irving Berlin, quoted in Puttin' on the Ritz, BBC Programme Acquisition, 1999.

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

"Father Severyan", in November 1916: The Red Wheel: Knot II (1984; translation 1999).
Context: At no time has the world been without war. Not in seven or ten or twenty thousand years. Neither the wisest of leaders, nor the noblest of kings, nor yet the Church — none of them has been able to stop it. And don't succumb to the facile belief that wars will be stopped by hotheaded socialists. Or that rational and just wars can be sorted out from the rest. There will always be thousands of thousands to whom even such a war will be senseless and unjustified. Quite simply, no state can live without war, that is one of the state's essential functions. … War is the price we pay for living in a state. Before you can abolish war you will have to abolish all states. But that is unthinkable until the propensity to violence and evil is rooted out of human beings. The state was created to protect us from evil. In ordinary life thousands of bad impulses, from a thousand foci of evil, move chaotically, randomly, against the vulnerable. The state is called upon to check these impulses — but it generates others of its own, still more powerful, and this time one-directional. At times it throws them all in a single direction — and that is war.

Source: The Outline of History (1920), chapter no. 25.4 (Buddhism and Ashoka) page no 365-366
Context: Ashoka (264 to 227 B. C.), one of the great monarchs of history, whose dominions extended from Afghanistan to Madras... is the only military monarch on record who abandoned warfare] after [[victory. He had invaded Kalinga (255 B. C.), a country along the east coast of Madras, perhaps with some intention of completing the conquest of the tip of the Indian peninsula. The expedition was successful, but he was disgusted by what be saw of the cruelties and horrors of war. He declared, in certain inscriptions that still exist, that he would no longer seek conquest by war, but by religion, and the rest of his life was devoted to the spreading of Buddhism throughout the world. He seems to have ruled his vast empire in peace and with great ability. He was no mere religious fanatic. For eight and twenty years Asoka worked sanely for the real needs of men. Amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of history, their majesties and graciousnesses and serenities and royal highnesses and the like, the name of Asoka shines, and shines, almost alone, a star. From the Volga to Japan his name is still honoured. China, Tibet, and even India, though it has left his doctrine, preserve the tradition of his greatness. More living men cherish his memory to-day than have ever heard the names of Constantine or Charlemagne.

"Chicago", on the spoken word album Wake Up America! (1970).