“One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.”

Narrator, p. 186
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Honor (1985)

Section 10
The True Believer (1951), Part One: The Appeal of Mass Movements

Major Joseph Forrest, p. 148
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Escape (2003)

Source: The Fires of Heaven

"On Relativism" (1925)
Context: Socialism is good when it comes to wages, but it tells me nothing when it comes to other questions in life that are more private and painful, for which I must seek answers elsewhere. Relativism is not indifference; on the contrary, passionate indifference is necessary in order for you not to hear the voices that oppose your absolute decrees … Relativism is neither a method of fighting, nor a method of creating, for both of these are uncompromising and at times even ruthless; rather, it is a method of cognition. If one must fight or create, it is necessary that this be preceded by the broadest possible knowledge... One of the worst muddles of this age is its confusing of the ideas behind combative and cognitive activity. Cognition is not fighting, but once someone knows a lot, he will have much to fight for, so much that he will be called a relativist because of it.

Zhuan Falun http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/zflus.html

Source: The Affair

As quoted in It Has Been 50 Years Since Che Guevara Was Murdered http://www.thenation.com/article/archive/it-has-been-50-years-since-che-guevara-was-murdered/, by Bill Ayers and Michael Steven Smith