“Against enemy machine-gun posts and wire entanglements the most gallant and best-led men could only throw away their precious lives in successive waves of heroic martyrdom. Their costly sacrifice could avail nothing for the winning of victory.”

— David Lloyd George

War Memoirs (1938)
Post-Prime Ministerial
Context: Modern warfare, we discovered, was to a far greater extent than ever before a conflict of chemists and manufacturers. Manpower, it is true, was indispensable, and generalship will always, whatever the conditions, have a vital part to play. But troops, however brave and well led, were powerless under modern conditions unless equipped with adequate and up-to-date artillery (with masses of explosive shell), machine-guns, aircraft and other supplies. Against enemy machine-gun posts and wire entanglements the most gallant and best-led men could only throw away their precious lives in successive waves of heroic martyrdom. Their costly sacrifice could avail nothing for the winning of victory.

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David Lloyd George 172

Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1863–1945

Mullah Dadullah (1966–2007) Afghan Taliban commander

Dadullah's 'last interview' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUxFHt7Igsk
Final words before death

“If only the wind could reach inside me, wipe clean my heartache, my guilt, my confusion. If only the waves could wash away this heartache, this jealousy and rage, this guilt and sadness. If only the rocks could lend me their stability, their strength, so I might choose wisely. If only the sun could burn away my past, so I would not have to live with any regrets.”

Valya Dudycz Lupescu (1974) American writer

The Silence of Trees (2010)

“Yep," said Arthur. Somehowseemed the most positive thing he could say. Stronger thanand more heroic than. He hoped he could live up to it.”

Garth Nix book Drowned Wednesday

Source: Drowned Wednesday

“Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Chapter 19 https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch19.htm; originally published in The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains (June 11, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 321.
Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (The Little Red Book)

“Today, violence against women is rightly abhorred. But we call violence against men entertainment. Think of football, boxing, wrestling… All are games used to sugarcoat violence against men, originally in need of sugarcoating so our team --or our society --could bribe its best protectors to sacrifice themselves.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 75.

“Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won: the bravery of my troops hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to win such a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expens of so many gallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune but for the result to the public.”

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) British soldier and statesman

Letter from the field of Waterloo (June 1815), as quoted in Decisive Battles of the World (1899) by Edward Shepherd Creasy. Quoted too in Memorable Battles in English History: Where Fought, why Fought, and Their Results; with the Military Lives of the Commanders by William Henry Davenport Adams; Editor Griffith and Farran, 1863. p. 400.
Context: My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won: the bravery of my troops hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to win such a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expens of so many gallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune but for the result to the public.

“There were some things that only time could cure. Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Childhood's End

Guardian Angel, p. 220
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)
Source: Childhood's End

“I think I entirely agree with you on the subject of Portugal; all the probabilities were, and in my opinion still are, against eventual success there. I have no faith even in the promised victory…I could not deny that such a success would be worth the sacrifices we had made for it. But a doubtful or indecisive victory, and protracted operations, I should think little less ruinous (I am not sure they would not be more so) than an immediate defeat.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Letter to Lord Grenville (9 November 1810), quoted in Rory Muir, Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807-1815 (Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 136-137.
1810s

“I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

“Your Worst Enemy Could Be Your Best Friend && Your Best Friend Your Worst Enemy”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

“Against enemy machine-gun posts and wire entanglements the most gallant and best-led men could only throw away their precious lives in successive waves of heroic martyrdom. Their costly sacrifice could avail nothing for the winning of victory.”

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David Lloyd George 172

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