“The enemy is delighted to have us so occupied incessantly with secondary and trivial concerns, as to keep us from attacking and resisting in the true spirit of the conflict.”
20 March 1916 Source: Geraldine Taylor. Behind the Ranges: The Life-changing Story of J.O. Fraser. Singapore: OMF International (IHQ) Ltd., 1998, 157.
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James O. Fraser 7
missionary to China, inventor of Tibeto-Burman Nosu alphabet 1886–1938Related quotes

The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 6, p. 1111.

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Fire Book
Context: "To tread down the sword" is a principle often used in strategy. First, in large-scale strategy, when the enemy first discharges bows and guns and then attacks, it is difficult for us to attack if we are busy loading powder into our guns or notching our arrows. The spirit is to attack quickly while the enemy is still shooting with bows or guns. The spirit is to win by "treading down" as we receive the enemy's attack.
In single combat, we cannot get a decisive victory by cutting, with a "tee-dum tee-dum" feeling, in the wake of the enemy's attacking long sword. We must defeat him at the start of his attack, in the spirit of treading him down with the feet, so that he cannot rise again to the attack.

Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 13, "The Battles" (p. 95)

Quotes, The Assault on Reason (2007)
Context: History will surely judge America's decision to invade and occupy a fragile and unstable nation that did not attack us and posed no threat to us as a decision that was not only tragic but absurd. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, to be sure, but not one who posed an imminent danger to us. It is a decision that could have been made only at a moment in time when reason was playing a sharply diminished role in our national deliberations.

Said during his exile in Peking, as quoted by Oriana Fallaci (June 1973), Intervista con la Storia (sixth edition, 2011). page 128.
Interviews

Chronicles of Dissent, December 13, 1989 http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/db-8912.html
Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s
Context: Non-violent resistance activities cannot succeed against an enemy that is able freely to use violence. That's pretty obvious. You can't have non-violent resistance against the Nazis in a concentration camp, to take an extreme case...

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)