“Alexander: No spunk, simple as that! Your brother's an army deserter!
Michael: Oh yes, I've resigned my commission.
Alexander: He's refusing to return to duty.
Michael: On grounds of ill health, Papa. I'm sick of the Army.
Alexander: No discipline, that's the problem!
Michael: No, it's riddled with discipline, that's the problem. That and Poland.”

—  Tom Stoppard

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage (2002)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Alexander: No spunk, simple as that! Your brother's an army deserter! Michael: Oh yes, I've resigned my commission. A…" by Tom Stoppard?
Tom Stoppard photo
Tom Stoppard 116
British playwright 1937

Related quotes

Tom Stoppard photo
Sarah Chang photo
William T. Sherman photo

“An army to be useful must be a unit, and out of this has grown the saying, attributed to Napoleon, but doubtless spoken before the days of Alexander, that an army with an inefficient commander was better than one with two able heads.”

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.

Letter to E. D. Townsend, Assistant Adjutant-General (26 March 1869)
1860s, 1869, Letter to E.D. Townsend (March 1869)

Pat Conroy photo
William James photo

“Alexander's career was piracy pure and simple, nothing but an orgy of power and plunder, made romantic by the character of the hero.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

1900s, The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)
Context: Alexander's career was piracy pure and simple, nothing but an orgy of power and plunder, made romantic by the character of the hero. There was no rational purpose in it, and the moment he died his generals and governors attacked one another.

Michael Powell photo
Diodorus Siculus photo

“[Alexander North] Whitehead is supposed to have said of [Bertrand] Russell: “Bertie thinks me muddleheaded and I think Bertie simple-minded.””

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Morality of Mr. Winters”, p. 18
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Alexander Mackenzie photo

Related topics