Quotes about arm
page 20

“Trapped in the blood, athirst for air,
Christ, who once was employed as single Son of God
Now finds Himself among three billion on a billion
Brother sons, their arms thrown wide to grasp and hold
and walk them everywhere
Now weaving this, now weaving that in swoons…”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Christ, Old Student in a New School (1972)

God, Christ

“Resistance does not just mean sending some martyrdom-seeker to Tel Aviv…. If resistance meant nothing more than bearing arms and making a big fuss – this would not be resistance, but suicide.”

Jibril Rajoub (1953) Palestinian sharamit

Fatah Revolutionary Council Member Jibril Rajoub: Merely Bearing Arms and Making a Big Fuss Is Suicide, Not Resistance http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1434 April 2007

Suicide

“International policy does not aim at exploiting local, specific conditions to widen zones of influence and create difficulties for another country. The goal of international policy is to insure universal fulfillment of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man" and to prevent a sharpening of international tensions and a strengthening of militarist and nationalist tendencies.
Such a set of principles would in no way be a betrayal of the revolutionary and national liberation struggle, the struggle against reaction and counterrevolution. On the contrary, with the elimination of all doubtful cases, it would be easier to take decisive action in those extreme cases of reaction, racism, and militarism that allow no course other than armed struggle.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Dangers, International Tensions And New Principles

Way, Decision, Universe, Betrayal

“Julia Hayden, the colored school teacher, one of the latest victims of the White man's League, was only seventeen years of age. She was the daughter of respectable parents in Maury County, Tennessee, and had been carefully educated at the Central College, Nashville, a favorite place for the instruction of youth of both sexes of her race. She is said to have possessed unusual personal attractions as well as intelligence. Under the reign of slavery as it is defined and upheld by Davis and Toombs, Julia Hayden would probably have been taken from her parents and sent in a slave coffle to New Orleans to be sold on its auction block. But emancipation had prepared for her a different and less dreadful fate. With that strong desire for mental cultivation which marked the colored race since their freedom, in all circumstances where there is an opportunity left them for its exhibition, the young girl had so improved herself as to become capable of teaching others. She went to Western Tennessee and took charge of a school. Three days after her arrival at Hartsville, at night, two white men, armed with their guns, appeared at the house where she was staying, and demanded the school teacher. She fled, alarmed, to the room of the mistress of the house. The White Leaguers pursued. They fired their guns I through the floor of the room and the young girl fell dead within. Her murderers escaped.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

"Louisiana and the Rule of Terror" http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=EL18741010.2.9#, The Elevator (10 October 1874), Volume 10, Number 26.

Men, Fate, Youth, Age

“I will say to you and to the colored race that men who bore arms and followed the flag of the Confederacy are, with very few exceptions, your friends. I have an opportunity of saying what I have always felt - that I am your friend, for my interests are your interests, and your interests are my interests. We were born on the same soil, breathe the same air, and live in the same land. Why, then, can we not live as brothers? I will say that when the war broke out I felt it my duty to stand by my people. When the time came I did the best I could, and I don't believe I flickered. I came here with the jeers of some white people, who think that I am doing wrong. I believe that I can exert some influence, and do much to assist the people in strengthening fraternal relations, and shall do all in my power to bring about peace. It has always been my motto to elevate every man- to depress none.”

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) Confederate Army general

1870s, Speech before the Pole-Bearers Association (1875)

Men, War, People, Peace

“Yield, ye arms, to the toga; to civic praise, ye laurels.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi.
Book I, section 77
De Officiis – On Duties (44 BC)

“Cut is the Sure Start maternity allowance. Has [the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith] no idea at all that supporting a family and getting the children out of poverty when the babies are born can save money from the public purse for years to come? Instead, he wants to cut support from the babes in their mothers' arms. At least Margaret Thatcher had the grace to wait until the children were weaned before snatching their support.”

Yvette Cooper (1969) British politician

During a budget response debate http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm100628/debtext/100628-0012.htm, 28 July, 2010.

Money, Children, Family, Idea

“It came to me in the very horror of the immediate presence that the act would be, seeing and facing what I saw and faced, to keep the boy himself unaware. The inspiration—I can call it by no other name—was that I felt how voluntarily, how transcendently, I might. It was like fighting with a demon for a human soul, and when I had fairly so appraised it I saw how the human soul—held out, in the tremor of my hands, at arm's length—had a perfect dew of sweat on a lovely childish forehead.”

Henry James book The Turn of the Screw

Source: The Turn of the Screw (1898), Ch. XXIV.

Love, Soul, Boy, Fight

“You remember, we were sittin' there, by the water,
You put your arm around me for the first time.
You made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter.
You are the best thing that's ever been mine.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

Mine.
Song lyrics, Speak Now (2010)

Water, Time, Daughters

“If he is this good at acting crazy, it's because he is." Nor is military psychology mistaken in this regard: in this sense, all crazy people simulate, and this lack of distinction is the worst kind of subversion. It is against this lack of distinction that classical reason armed itself in all its categories. But it is what today again outflanks them, submerging the principle of truth.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

The Precession of Simulcra
1980s, Simulacra and Simulation (1981)

People, Truth, Sense

“…the standard arm was the most beautiful firearm ever invented, the famous short Lee Enfield……. She's a museum piece now, but I still see her on T. V. newsreels, in the hands of hairy, outlandish men like the Mujahedeen of Afghanistan and capable-looking gentry in North Africa, and I have a feeling that she will be loosing off her ten rounds rapid when the Kalashnikovs and Armalites are forgotten. That's the old reactionary talking: no doubt Agincourt die-hards said the same of the long bow.”

George MacDonald Fraser book Quartered Safe Out Here

Source: Quartered Safe Out Here (1992), p. 29-30.

Men, Beauty, Feeling

“This chapter [of the destruction of temples], however, though significant, was only a part of the Muslim behaviour-pattern as recorded by Muslim historians of medieval India. The other parts were:
1) mass slaughter of people not only during war but also after the armies of Islam had emerged victorious;
2) capture of large numbers of non-combatant men, women and children as booty and their sale as slaves all over the Islamic world;
3) forcible conversion to Islam of people who were in no position to resist;
4) reduction to the status of zimmis or non-citizens of all those who could not be converted and imposition of inhuman disabilities on them;
5) emasculation of the zimmis by preventing them from possessing arms;
6) impoverishment of the zimmis through heavy discriminatory taxes and misappropriation of a major part of what the peasants produced;
7) ruination of the native and national culture of the zimmis by suppressing and holding in contempt all its institutions and expressions.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume I (1990)

Women, Men, War, Children

“By 1922, General Hans von Seeckt, commander of the German armed forces, was secretly advising his government: "Poland's existence is intolerable, incompatible with the essential conditions of Germany's life. Poland must go and will go". He added that Poland's obliteration "must be one of the fundamental objectives of German policy… With the disappearance of Poland will fall one of the strongest pillars of the Versailles Peace, the hegemony of France."”

William L. Shirer book The Collapse of the Third Republic

The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969)

Life, Peace

“The success of yesterday's mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq. The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator's footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate 'em.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Remarks on the Capture of Saddam Hussein (December 2003)

Women, Men, People, Hope

“Those who urge an alliance with Assad cite the example of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet despot who became an ally of Western democracies against Nazi Germany. I never liked historical comparisons and like this one even less. To start with, the Western democracies did not choose Stalin as an ally; he was thrusted upon them by the turn of events. When the Second World War started Stalin was an ally of Hitler thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviet Union actively participated in the opening phase of the war by invading Poland from the east as the Germans came in from the West. Before that, Stalin had rendered Hitler a big service by eliminating thousands of Polish army officers in The Katyn massacre. Between September 1939 and June 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin was an objective ally of Hitler. Stalin switched sides when he had no choice if he wanted to save his skin. The situation in Syria today is different. There is no alliance of democracies which, thanks to Obama’s enigmatic behavior, lack any strategy in the Middle East. Unlike Stalin, Assad has not switched sides if only because there is no side to switch to. Assad regards ISIS as a tactical ally against other armed opposition groups. This is why Russia is now focusing its air strikes against non-ISIS armed groups opposed to Assad. More importantly, Assad has none of the things that Stalin had to offer the Allies. To start with Stalin could offer the vast expanse of territory controlled by the Soviet Union and capable of swallowing countless German divisions without belching. Field Marshal von Paulus’ one-million man invasion force was but a drop in the ocean of the Soviet landmass. In contrast, Assad has no territorial depth to offer. According to the Iranian General Hossein Hamadani, who was killed in Aleppo, Assad is in nominal control of around 20 percent of the country. Stalin also had an endless supply of cannon fodder, able to ship in millions from the depths of the Urals, Central Asia and Siberia. In contrast, Assad has publicly declared he is running out of soldiers, relying on Hezbollah cannon fodder sent to him by Tehran. If Assad has managed to hang on to part of Syria, it is partly because he has an air force while his opponents do not. But even that advantage has been subject to the law of diminishing returns. Four years of bombing defenseless villages and towns has not changed the balance of power in Assad’s favor. This may be why his Russian backers decided to come and do the bombing themselves. Before, the planes were Russian, the pilots Syrian. Now both planes and pilots are Russian, underlining Assad’s increasing irrelevance. Stalin’s other card, which Assad lacks, consisted of the USSR’s immense natural resources, especially the Azerbaijan oilfields which made sure the Soviet tanks could continue to roll without running out of petrol. Assad in contrast has lost control of Syria’s oilfields and is forced to buy supplies from ISIS or smugglers operating from Turkey. There are other differences between Stalin then and Assad now. Adulated as “the Father of the Nation” Stalin had the last word on all issues. Assad is not in that position. In fact, again according to the late Hamadani in his last interview published by Iranian media, what is left of the Syrian Ba’athist regime is run by a star chamber of shadowy characters who regard Assad as nothing but a figurehead.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Opinion: No, Bashar Al-Assad is no Joseph Stalin http://english.aawsat.com/2015/10/article55345413/opinion-no-bashar-al-assad-is-no-joseph-stalin, Ashraq Al-Awsat (16 Oct, 2015).

War, World, Law, Behavior

“Humor gives presidents the chance to be seen as warm, relaxed persons. Humor reaches out and puts its arm around the listener and says, 'I am one of you, I understand,' and implicitly it promises, 'I will do something about your problems.”

Robert Orben (1928) American magician and writer

William Lowther (September 21, 1986) "Americans laugh at their presidents -- not with them", The Toronto Star, p. B3.

Understanding, Problem, Chance, Personality

“An expensive arms race, under cover of the military metaphysic, and in a paranoid atmosphere of fright, is an economically attractive business. To many utopian capitalists, it has become the Business Way of American Life.”

C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) American sociologist

The Causes of World War Three (1960)

Life, Way, Business

“The highest of human laws is the law that is established by appeal to arms. The sword has decided in favor of the North, and what they claimed as principles cease to be principles, and are become law. The views that we hold cease to be principles because they are opposed to law. It is our duty to abandon ideas that are obsolete and conform to the requirements of law.”

James Longstreet (1821–1904) Confederate Army general

Letter to the New Orleans Times http://civilwartalk.com/threads/im-a-good-ole-rebel.34939/page-2#post-352510 (8 June 1867)

Law, Idea

“Fair, gentle friend, I’ve found so dear a home
I wish that dawn might never come again;
The loveliest lady ever born of woman
Lies in my arms, and I care not a straw
For jealous fool or dawn!”

Giraut de Bornelh (1138–1220) French writer

Bel dous companh, tan sui en ric sojorn
Qu'eu no volgra mais fos l'alba ni jorn,
Car la gensor que anc nasques de maire
Tenc et abras, per qu'eu non prezi gaire
Lo fol gilos ni l'alba.
"Reis glorios", line 31; translation from Peter Dronke The Medieval Lyric (1996) p. 176.

Fools, Home

“I became a vegetarian at 15. I was never a big meat eater — I was always picky. I was raised in a kosher home, and if you're raised with a food restriction, it's not that difficult to have another kind of food restriction. … At some point, I had a dream that I was eating chicken. But in the dream, I understood that it was actually miniature human legs and arms. My brain was connecting muscle and bone to another animal. Once I had made that connection, it just wasn't something I wanted to eat.”

Lisa Edelstein (1967) American actress, playwright

"Lisa Edelstein: "I Don't Eat for Entertainment!"" https://web.archive.org/web/20100506024115/http://online.prevention.com/lisaedelstein/index.shtml, interview with Prevention magazine (7 May 2010).

Food, Dreams, Home, Animals

“When we had been in Ashenstovo [1873, located near the Prussian border]] a few days my mother took us children to see a famous Polish church, Kostjol, famous for its miraculous Madonna icon. This icon had three precious coats, one of gold, one of coral and one with pearls and diamonds... Many peasant men and women were were lying prostrate on the floor as if crucified, with their arms outstretched. It was very quiet. Suddenly a great blare of trumpets shattered the silence. Terribly frightened I saw the gold curtain open and the Madonna appear wearing a gold robe.”

Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941) Russian painter

from his 'Memories', in 'Catalogue Raisonné of the oil Paintings', ed. Maria Jawlensky, Angelica Jawlensky and Lucia Pieroni-Jawlensky; published resp. in 1991, 1992, 1993
Source: 1936 - 1941, Life Memories' (1938), p.274

Women, Men, Children, Lying

“I had to pull about twenty pieces of broken glass out of my hand using tweezers and antiseptic cream. I'm never going to have a game of arm wrestling with Michael Howard again.”

Gyles Brandreth (1948) British writer, broadcaster and former Member of Parliament

House of Commons (9 July 1996), Hansard.

Game

“There are some who object to war because of its immorality, there are some who shrink from the arbitrament of arms because of its increased cruelty and barbarity; there are a growing number who protest against this method, at the outset known to be unsuccessful, of attempting to settle international disputes because of its imbecility and futility. But there is not a living soul in any country who does not deeply resent having his passions roused, his indignation inflamed, his patriotism exploited, and his highest ideals desecrated by concealment, subterfuge, fraud, falsehood, trickery, and deliberate lying on the part of those in whom he is taught to repose confidence and to whom he is enjoined to pay respect.”

Arthur Ponsonby (1871–1946) British Liberal and later Labour politician and pacifist

Falsehood in Wartime (1928), Introduction

War, Soul, Confidence, Lying

“There is a growing strength in women but it's in the forehead, not the forearm. Men will always be attracted to women with nice soft arms and a fleshy bosom.”

Beverly Sills (1929–2007) opera soprano

As quoted in TIME Vol. 120 (1982)

Women, Men

“Come out into the universe of Light. Everything in the universe is yours, stretch out your arms and embrace it with love. If you every felt you wanted to do that, you have felt God.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Love, God, Light, Universe

“Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen forehead of every traitor to his country and every maligner of his fair reputation.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Nominating speech for Blaine for President, at the Republican National Convention (15 June 1876).

Country

“One of the most dangerous words is 'extremist'. A person who commits acts of violence is not an 'extremist'; he is a criminal. If he commits those acts of violence with the object of detaching part of the territory of the United Kingdom and attaching it to a foreign country, he is an enemy under arms. There is the world of difference between a citizen who commits a crime, in the belief, however mistaken, that he is thereby helping to preserve the integrity of his country and his right to remain a subject of his sovereign, and a person, be he citizen or alien, who commits a crime with the intention of destroying that integrity and rendering impossible that allegiance. The former breaches the peace; the latter is executing an act of war. The use of the word 'extremist' of either or both conveys a dangerous untruth: it implies that both hold acceptable opinions and seek permissible ends, only that they carry them to 'extremes'. Not so: the one is a lawbreaker; the other is an enemy.

The same purpose, that of rendering friend and foe indistinguishable, is achieved by references to the 'impartiality' of the British troops and to their function as 'keeping the peace'. The British forces are in Northern Ireland because an avowed enemy is using force of arms to break down lawful authority in the province and thereby seize control. The army cannot be 'impartial' towards an enemy, nor between the aggressor and the aggressed: they are not glorified policemen, restraining two sets of citizens who might otherwise do one another harm, and duty bound to show no 'partiality' towards one lawbreaker rather than another. They are engaged in defeating an armed attack upon the state. Once again, the terminology is designed to obliterate the vital difference between friend and enemy, loyal and disloyal.

Then there are the 'no-go' areas which have existed for the past eighteen months. It would be incredible, if it had not actually happened, that for a year and a half there should be areas in the United Kingdom where the Queen's writ does not run and where the citizen is protected, if protected at all, by persons and powers unknown to the law. If these areas were described as what they are—namely, pockets of territory occupied by the enemy, as surely as if they had been captured and held by parachute troops—then perhaps it would be realised how preposterous is the situation. In fact the policy of refraining from the re-establishment of civil government in these areas is as wise as it would be to leave enemy posts undisturbed behind one's lines.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to the South Buckinghamshire Conservative Women's Annual Luncheon in Beaconsfield (19 March 1971), from Reflections of a Statesman. The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (London: Bellew, 1991), pp. 487-488.
1970s

War, World, Peace, Law

“Contempt for the enemy, if illustrated, can prove to be an unwise form of falsehood. There was a time when German soldiers were popularly represented cringing, with their arms in the air and crying "Kamerad," until it occurred to Press and propaganda authorities that people were asking why, if this was the sort of material we were fighting against, had we not wiped them off the field in a few weeks.”

Arthur Ponsonby (1871–1946) British Liberal and later Labour politician and pacifist

Falsehood in Wartime (1928), Introduction

People, Time, Fight, Cry

“[Gladio] had been founded in almost all the Countries that belonged to the Nato, and for Nato's wish, aware that its European partners would not have been able to withstand the attack of a much power armed as the Soviet union: they would have to wait for the rescue, the intervention of America. It's demonstrated by the fact that when this plan was revealed, no other country found nothing to say. Only we Italians – the usual idiots and fools novelists – made it the subject of scandal and pretext of «Crime fictions» that still find credit, as this letter shows. I also feel shocked, and bit offended. But just because no one has called me for adherence to Gladio: I would have given it with enthusiasm.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

Corriere della Sera http://web.archive.org/web/20151108234947/http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/1997/luglio/06/Caso_Moro_non_piu_nulla_co_0_9707062761.shtml, 7 June 1997, p. 35. 1950s - 1990s

Fools, Feeling, Waiting, Country

“[The] National Rifle Association is always arguing that the Second Amendment determines the right to bear arms. But I think it really is the people's right to bear arms in a militia. The NRA thinks it protects their right to have Teflon-coated bullets. But that's not the original understanding.”

Robert Bork (1927–2012) American legal scholar

In Miriam Bensimhorn, Advocates: Point and Counterpoint, Laurence Tribe and Robert Bork Debate the Framers' Spacious Terms, LIFE magazine, Fall 1991 (Special Issue).

People, Understanding, Thinking

“Within those confining walls, teachers — a bunch of men all armed with the same information — gave the same lectures every year from the same notebooks and every year at the same point in the textbooks made the same jokes.”

Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) Japanese author

"Cigarette" ("Ta- bako") story, quoted in 三島由紀夫短編集: Seven Stories, translated by John Bester (2002), p. 110.

Men, Teachers

“And Canadians didn’t like guns, either—they had no Second Amendment, or whatever damned thing it was that made Americans think they could go around armed.”

Robert J. Sawyer book Flashforward

Source: Flashforward (1999), Chapter 9 (pp. 95-96)

Thinking

“Primarily the American Republic has entered the war in defense of its national rights. If we did not defend we could not hope to endure. Other big issues are involved but the maintained rights and defended honor of a righteous nation includes them all. Cherishing the national rights the fathers fought to establish, and loving freedom and civilization, we should have violated every tradition and sacrificed every inheritance if we had longer held aloof from the armed conflict which is to make the world safe for civilization. More, we are committed to sacrifice in battle in order to make America safe for Americans and establish their security on every lawful mission on the high seas or under the shining sun.”

Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) American politician, 29th president of the United States (in office from 1921 to 1923)

1910s, The Republic Must Awaken (1917)

Love, War, World, Law

“We are not empire builders. How important this fact is no American who has not lived in Asia can appreciate. It goes against our conscience, which is a very tender part of the American spirit. Therefore we are learning how to hold our allies, not by force of arms and government, but by mutual benefit and friendship. So much is already clear…
I am therefore hopeful. In spite of dismaying contradictions in individuals in our national scene, I feel the controlling spirit or our people, generous, decent, and sane. In this mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Source: My Several Worlds (1954), p. 407, This has sometimes been quoted as "In a mood of faith and hope..."

Friendship, People, Books, Faith

“This happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists, now what this says to me, I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the end times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God's end times history.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

2010s

God, History, Understanding, Tree

“There is something strangely winning to most women in that offer of the firm arm; the help is not wanted physically at that moment, but the sense of help, the presence of strength that is outside them and yet theirs, meets a continual want of the imagination.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

The Mill on the Floss (1860)

Women, Imagination, Sense, Help

“Why com'st thou like a girl with blubber'd eyes,
Who running by her busie mother cries
To be ta'en up, and by her garments holds,
Till she the fondling in her arms infolds.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

Book XVI
Homer His Iliads Translated (1660)

Girl, Business

“My labor had not been easy nor light; our Masonry had spun a most intricate net of anti-religious activity; it dominated the currents of thought; it exercised its influence over publishing houses, over teaching, over the administration of justice and even over certain dominant sections of the armed forces. To give an idea of how far things had gone, this significant example is sufficient. When, in parliament, I delivered my first speech of November 16, 1922, after the Fascist revolution, I concluded by invoking the assistance of God in my difficult task. Well, this sentence of mine seemed to be out of place! In the Italian parliament, a field of action for Italian Masonry, the name of God had been banned for a long time. Not even the Popular party — the so-called Catholic party — had ever thought of speaking of God. In Italy, a political man did not even turn his thoughts to the Divinity. And, even if he had ever thought of doing so, political opportunism and cowardice would have deterred him, particularly in a legislative assembly. It remained for me to make this bold innovation! And in an intense period of revolution! What is the truth! It is that a faith openly professed is a sign of strength. I have seen the religious spirit bloom again; churches once more are crowded, the ministers of God are themselves invested with new respect. Fascism has done and is doing its duty.”

Benito Mussolini book My Autobiography

1920s
Source: My Autobiography (1928)

God, Truth, Faith, Justice

“The Filipino, it seems, has lost his soul, his dignity, and his courage.

We have come upon a phase of our history when ideals are only a veneer for greed and power, (in public and private affairs) when devotion to duty and dedication to a public trust are to be weighted at all times against private advantages and personal gain, and when loyalties can be traded.

…Our government is in the iron grip of venality, its treasury is barren, its resources are wasted, its civil service is slothful and indifferent, its armed forces demoralized and its councils sterile.,

We are in crisis. You know that the government treasury is empty. Only by severe self-denial will there be hope for recovery within the next year…

This nation can be great again. This I have said over and over. It is my articles of faith, and Divine Providence has willed that you and I can now translate this faith into deeds.”

Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989) former President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986

Mandate for Greatness,” First Inaugural Speech of President Ferdinand E. Marcos, 30 December 1965.
1965

Faith, Hope, Soul, History

“He is Karna, whom the world has abandoned. Karna Alone. Condemned goods. A prince raised in poverty. Born to die unfairly, unarmed and alone at the hands of his brother. Majestic in his complete despair. Praying on the banks of the Ganga. Stoned out of his skull.
Then Kunti appeared. She too was a man, but a man grown soft and womanly, a man with breasts, from doing female parts for years. Her movements were fluid. Full of women. Kunti, too, was stoned. High on the same shared joints. She had come to tell Karna a story.
Karna inclined his beautiful head and listened.
Red-eyed, Kunti danced for him. She told him of a young woman who had been granted a boon. A secret mantra that she could use to choose a lover from among the gods. Of how, with the imprudence of youth, the woman decided to test it to see if it really worked. How she stood alone in an empty field, turned her face to the heavens and recited the mantra. The words had scarcely left her foolish lips, Kunti said, when Surya, the God of Day, appeared before her. The young woman, bewitched by the beauty of the shimmering young god, gave herself to him. Nine months later she bore him a son. The baby was born sheathed in light, with gold earrings in his ears and a gold breastplate on his chest, engraved with the emblem of the sun.
The young mother loved her first-born son deeply, Kunti said, but she was unmarried and couldn't keep him. She put him in a reed basket and cast him away in a river. The child was found downriver by Adhirata, a charioteer. And named Karna.
Karna looked up to Kunti. Who was she? Who was my mother? Tell me where she is. Take me to her.
Kunti bowed her head. She's here, she said. Standing before you.
Karna's elation and anger at the revelation. His dance of confusion and despair. Where were you, he asked her, when I needed you the most? Did you ever hold me in your arms? Did you feed me? Did you ever look for me? Did you wonder where I might be?
In reply Kunti took the regal face in her hands, green the face, red the eyes, and kissed him on his brow. Karna shuddered in delight. A warrior reduced to infancy. The ecstasy of that kiss. He dispatched it to the ends of his body. To his toes. His fingertips. His lovely mother's kiss. Did you know how much I missed you? Rahel could see it coursing through his veins, as clearly as an egg travelling down an ostrich's neck.
A travelling kiss whose journey was cut short by dismay when Karna realised that his mother had revealed herself to him only to secure the safety of her five other, more beloved sons - the Pandavas - poised on the brink of their epic battle with their one hundred cousins. It is them that Kunti sought to protect by announcing to Karna that she was his mother. She had a promise to extract.
She invoked the Love Laws.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

pages 232-233.
The God of Small Things (1997)

Love, Women, God, Secret

“For a time our efforts seem to create, and to adorn, and to perfect, until we forget our origin and destination, substituting self for that divine hand which alone can unite the elements of worlds as they float in gasses, equally from His mysterious laboratory, and scatter them again into thin air when the works of His hand cease to find favour in His view.
Let those who would substitute the voice of the created for that of the Creator, who shout "the people, the people," instead of hymning the praises of their God, who vainly imagine that the masses are sufficient for all things, remember their insignificance and tremble. They are but mites amid millions of other mites, that the goodness of providence has produced for its own wise ends; their boasted countries, with their vaunted climates and productions, have temporary possessions of but small portions of a globe that floats, a point, in space, following the course pointed out by an invisible finger, and which will one day be suddenly struck out of its orbit, as it was originally put there, by the hand that made it. Let that dread Being, then, be never made to act a second part in human affairs, or the rebellious vanity of our race imagine that either numbers, or capacity, or success, or power in arms, is aught more than a short-lived gift of His beneficence, to be resumed when His purposes are accomplished.”

James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American author

The Crater; or, Vulcan's Peak: A Tale of the Pacific http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11573/11573-h/11573-h.htm (1847), Ch. XXX

God, People, World, Imagination

“As you know too well democracy and building of civil society cannot be achieved by means of missiles and aircraft, or by backing armed member of AlQuaeda in Benghazi.”

Muammar Gaddafi book The Green Book

The Green Book (1975), Letter to Barack Obama

Democracy

“Under the leadership of their democratic governments, all the anti-Japanese people in the Liberated Areas of China are called upon to join organizations of workers, peasants, youth and women, and cultural, professional and other organizations, which will wholeheartedly perform various tasks in support of the armed forces. Those tasks are not limited to rallying the people to join the army, transporting grain for it, caring for soldiers' families and helping the troops in meeting their material needs. They also include mobilizing the guerrilla units, militia and self-defence corps to make widespread raids and lay land mines against the enemy, gather intelligence about him, comb out traitors and spies, transport and protect the wounded and take direct part in the army's operations.”

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

On Coalition Government (1945)

Women, People, Youth, Family

“Moreover, regulatory bodies, like the people who comprise them, have a marked life cycle. In youth they are vigorous, aggressive, evangelistic, and even intolerant. Later they mellow, and in old age — after a matter of ten or fifteen years — they become, with some exceptions, either an arm of the industry they are regulating or senile.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Chapter VIII https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929, Aftermath II, Section VI, p 165 The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)

Life, People, Youth, Age

“All persons known to be of good character and of sound mind and suitable age, who are connected with this organization, whether male or female, shall be encouraged to carry arms openly.”

John Brown (abolitionist) (1800–1859) American abolitionist

Article XLIII.
Provisional Constitution and Ordinances (1858)

Age, Personality

“Exclusive dependence on Persian and Arabic sources, for an account of Muslim invasions, is apt to produce an unbalanced view. The basic prejudices of the Muslim historians, who mostly belonged to the Ulema class, against other religions, make them reject any other account, however authentic, if it tends to subvert their basic belief in the might of Islam. The victories of the arms of Islam have been elaborately described while the reverses have either been conveniently omitted or painted as having ended in negotiations and tribute. Even when described, only minor details are made available.”

Ram Gopal (1925) Indian author and historian

Ram Gopal, Indian Resistance to Early Muslim Invaders Upto 1206 A.D., 1983, p.64.
Indian Resistance to Early Muslim Invaders Upto 1206 A.D.

Religion, Victory, Painting, Dependency

“All socialists have bad backs because we slouch — except when we’re watching the news when we sit on the edge of our seats, shout, and wave our arms. Generally we sit hunched, arms crossed in a judgemental way, the whole of our bodies pulled into a frown.”

Jeremy Hardy (1961–2019) British comedian

Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation, BBC Radio 4, 2007

Way

“The insomniac brain comes in various flavours; different personality types you're forced to share your skull with for several hours. It's like being trapped in a lift with someone who won't shut up. Sometimes your companion is a peppy irritant who passes the time by humming half- remembered TV theme tunes until 7am. Other times it's a morose critic who has recently compiled a 1,500-page report on your innumerable failings and wants to run over it with you a few times before going to print. Worst of all is the hyper-aware sportscaster who offers an uninterrupted commentary describing which bits of your body are currently the least comfortable. No matter where you put that leg, he won't be satisfied. And he's convinced you've got one arm too many.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

The Guardian 26 October 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/26/charlie-brooker-sleeping-lessons Guardian columns

Time, Personality

“And he said "God, make it a dream!"
as he rode his last ride down.
And he sideswiped nineteen neat parked cars,
clipped off thirteen telephone poles,
hit two houses, bruised eight trees,
and Blue-Crossed seven people.
it was then he lost his head,
not to mention an arm or two before he stopped.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

30,000 Pounds of Bananas
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)

God, People, Dreams, Cars

“In the stupendous rush of change which is coming on the human world as a result of the present tornado of upheaval, ancient India's culture, attacked by European modernism, overpowered in the material field, betrayed by the indifference of her children, may perish for ever along with the soul of the nation that holds it in its keeping…. Each nation is a Shakti or power of the evolving spirit in humanity and lives by the principle which it embodies. India is the Bharata Shakti, the living energy of a great spiritual conception, and fidelity to it is the very principle of her existence…. To follow a law or principle involuntarily or ignorantly or contrary to the truth of one's consciousness is a falsehood and a self-destruction. To allow oneself to be killed, like the lamb attacked by the wolf, brings no growth, farthers no development, assures no spiritual merit. Concert or unity may come in good time, but it must be an underlying unity with a free differentiation, not a swallowing up of one by another or an incongruous and inharmonious mixture. Nor can it come before the world is ready for these greater things. To lay down one's arms in a state of war is to invite destruction and it can serve no compensating spiritual purpose…. India is indeed awaking and defending herself, but not sufficiently and not with the whole-heartedness, the clear sight and the firm resolution which can alone save her from the peril. Today it is close; let her choose,… for the choice is imperatively before her, to live or to perish.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

December, 1918
India's Rebirth

War, Children, Truth, World

“Other arms reach out to me
Other eyes smile tenderly
Still in peaceful dreams I see
The road leads back to you.
Georgia, oh Georgia, no peace I find…
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind.”

Ray Charles (1930–2004) American musician

Though renditions by Ray Charles are among the most popular and famous, the lyrics of "Georgia On My Mind" (1930) were written by Stuart Gorrell and the music by Hoagy Carmichael.
Misattributed

Peace, Smile, Dreams

“Though Bernie is exhausted and has given up on his revolution, many of his voters still want to keep up the fight. I expect that millions of Bernie voters will refuse to vote for Hillary because of her support for the War in Iraq, the invasion of Libya, NAFTA and TPP, and of course because she is totally bought and sold by special interests. She and her husband have been paid millions and millions by global corporations and powerful interests who will control her every decision. She is their puppet, and they pull the strings. We welcome with open arms all voters who want an honest government and to fix our rigged system so it works for the people. This includes fixing one of Bernie's biggest issues, our terrible trade deals that strip our country of its jobs and wealth.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

How Donald Trump Beat Reddit http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/donald-trump-reddit-ama-ask-me-anything/493361/, The Atlantic (July 28, 2016) 2010s, 2016, July

War, People, Support, Decision

“As the days of spring arouse all nature to a green and growing vitality, so when hope enters the soul it makes all things new. It insures the progress which it predicts. Rooted in faith, growing up into love; these make the three immortal graces of the gospel, whose intertwined arms and concurrent voices shed joy and peace over our human life.”

James Freeman Clarke (1810–1888) American theologian and writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 328.

Love, Life, Peace, Faith

“Ben Battle was a soldier bold,
And used to war's alarms;
But a cannon-ball took off his legs,
So he laid down his arms.”

Thomas Hood (1799–1845) British writer

Faithless Nellie Gray; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
20th century

War

“She wanted to crawl into his arms and be soothed, and soothe him in return, and forget all the grand ideas she’d ever had about true love, and the necessity for it. Because true love was a load of baloney. Finding a good friend…a good friend who trusted you…was more than enough.”

M. K. Hobson book The Native Star

Source: The Native Star (2010), Chapter 22, “Cupid’s Bludgeon” (p. 315)

Love, Idea, Forgetting

“Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there with open arms and open eyes.”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, Make Yourself (1999)

“Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins.”

Zechariah Chafee (1885–1957) American judicial philosopher and civil libertarian

"Freedom of Speech in Wartime", 32 Harvard Law Review 932, 957 (1919). (Various permutations of this quote have been incorrectly attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.). " Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf" dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“I'm finding this — this is the hardest part to connect to. Because this is — I mean, look, you know, David, what you just said is, you said, "I'm not comparing" — but you are. I mean, this is what Hitler did with the SS. He had his own people. He had the brownshirts and then the SS. This is what Saddam Hussein — so — but you are comparing that. And I — I mean, I think America would have a really hard time getting their arms around that.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

to David Ballavia, former Army staff sergeant, on Barack Obama's plan to expand the foreign service, AmeriCorps, and the Peace Corps
2000s, 2009

People, Thinking, Time, Parting

“To me, song writing is so therapeutic, it's just part of my life and I can't go through the day without having some kind of song idea pop into my head where I have to write Sharpie all over my arm trying to remember the song idea.”

Skye Sweetnam (1988) Canadian singer-songwriter

Life, Idea, Parting

“Let us serve Gujarat by maintaining shanti and sanyam. Let us strengthen the arms of law.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2002, "When select phrases are lifted and distorted out of context", 2002

Law

“Jordan tattoos the words "forgive me" in thick black letters down the inside of his arm so that when he looks at his wrist he will remember not to hate himself so much. What he keeps forgetting is that there is life after survival.”

Buddy Wakefield (1974) American poet

Human the Death Dance
Poetry

Life, Hate, Forgiveness, Tattoo

“The outbreak of a socialist revolution in one country will cause the others to imitate it or so to strengthen the proletariat as to prevent its national bourgeoisie from attempting any armed intervention.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

As quoted in The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution: The Origins of Ideological Polarization in the 20th Century, Jacob Talmon, University of California Press (1981) p. 487
Undated

Country

“Here you stand, after conquering mighty nations and subduing the world. I therefore think it foolish for me to goad you with words, as though you were men who had not been proved in action. Let a new leader or an untried army resort to that. It is not right for me to say anything common, nor ought you to listen. For what is war but your usual custom? Or what is sweeter for a brave man than to seek revenge with his own hand? It is a right of nature to glut the soul with vengeance. Let us then attack the foe eagerly; for they are ever the bolder who make the attack. Despise this union of discordant races! To defend oneself by alliance is proof of cowardice. See, even before our attack they are smitten with terror. They seek the heights, they seize the hills and, repenting too late, clamor for protection against battle in the open fields. You know how slight a matter the Roman attack is. While they are still gathering in order and forming in one line with locked shields, they are checked, I will not say by the first wound, but even by the dust of battle. Then on to the fray with stout hearts, as is your wont. Despise their battle line. Attack the Alani, smite the Visigoths! Seek swift victory in that spot where the battle rages. For when the sinews are cut the limbs soon relax, nor can a body stand when you have taken away the bones. Let your courage rise and your own fury burst forth! Now show your cunning, Huns, now your deeds of arms! Let the wounded exact in return the death of his foe; let the unwounded revel in slaughter of the enemy. No spear shall harm those who are sure to live; and those who are sure to die Fate overtakes even in peace. And finally, why should Fortune have made the Huns victorious over so many nations, unless it were to prepare them for the joy of this conflict. Who was it revealed to our sires the path through the Maeotian swamp, for so many ages a closed secret? Who, moreover, made armed men yield to you, when you were as yet unarmed? Even a mass of federated nations could not endure the sight of the Huns. I am not deceived in the issue;--here is the field so many victories have promised us. I shall hurl the first spear at the foe. If any can stand at rest while Attila fights, he is a dead man.”

Attila (406–453) King of the Hunnic Empire

As quoted by Jordanes, The Origin and Deeds of the Goths http://people.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html#attila, translated by Charles C. Mierow

Death, Men, Fate, War

“In anguish, I asked the prime minister what our intelligence agencies were doing all these months when the arms build-up was going on. And why action had not been taken to apprehend Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the extremist leader. I asked her if any police officer had been taken to task for negligence of duty in allowing terrorists to smuggle arms into the temple [Golden temple, Amritsar] for almost two years. She had obviously no plausible answer. With a distant look in her eyes, she replied feebly that it was the duty of the Punjab government to take care of these aspects.”

Zail Singh (1916–1994) Indian politician and former President of India

Source: K.R. Sundar Rajan Presidential Years:Zail Singh's posthumous defence of his controversial tenure http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Presidential-Years/202610, Outlook India Magazine, 4 December 1996.

Intelligence, Distant

“Alf Todd,’ said Ukridge, soaring to an impressive burst of imagery, ‘has about as much chance as a one-armed blind man in a dark room trying to shove a pound of melted butter into a wild-cat’s ear with a red-hot needle.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Ukridge (1924)

Cats, Chance

“In these days little need exists for extolling the blessings of our Federal Union. Its benefits are known and recognized by all its citizens who are worthy of serious attention. No one thinks now of attempting to destroy the Union by armed force. No one seriously considers withdrawing from it. But it is not enough that it should be free from attack — it must be approved and supported by a national spirit. Our prime allegiance must be to the whole country. A sentiment of sectionalism is not harmless because it is unarmed. Resistance to the righteous authority of Federal law is not innocent because it is not accompanied by secession. We need a more definite realization that all of our country must stand or fall together, and that it is the duty of the Government to promote the welfare of each part and the duty of the citizen to remember that he must be first of all an American.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Freedom and its Obligations (1924)

Law, Support, Thinking, Parting

“This professor standing before you was once a doctor, and by force of circumstance was obliged to take up arms, and after two years graduated as a guerrilla commander.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Speech at the University of Las Villas (1959)

“Arms, and the Man I sing, who first did land,
Fate-forc'd from Troy, on the Lavinian Strand;
Whom angry Gods at Sea and Land engage,
And cruel Juno's persecuting Rage.
Much suffer'd he by War, whilst Walls he rear'd,
And Trojan Gods to Latian Realms transferr'd;
Whence Latins, and the Alban Princes come,
And lofty Tow'rs of all-commanding Rome.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis

God, Fate, War, Rage

“In 1913 I had the happy idea to fasten a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and watch it turn. A few months later I bought a cheap reproduction of a winter evening landscape, which I called 'Pharmacy' after assign two small dots, one red and one yellow, in the horizon. In New York in 1915 I bought at a hardware store an snow shovel on which I wrote 'In advance of the broken arm'. It was around that time that the word 'Readymade' came to mind to designate this form of manifestation.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

1951 - 1968, Apropos of Ready Mades', 1961

Happiness, Idea, Winter, Time

“I have spent the greater part of my life in immediate contemplation of the most grotesque and horrible of the English innovations for the debasement of Ireland. I mean their education system. The English once proposed in their Dublin Parliament a measure for the castration of all Irish priests who refused to quit Ireland. The proposal was so filthy than although it duly passed the House and was transmitted to England with the warm recommendation at the Viceroy. it was not eventually adopted. But the English have actually carried out an even filthier thing. They have planned and established an education system which more wickedly does violence to the elemental human rights of Irish children than would an edict for the general castration of Irish males. The system has aimed at the substitution for men and women of mere Things. It has not been an entire success. There are still a great many thousand men and women in Ireland. But a great many thousand of what, by way of courtesy, we call men and women, are simply Things. Men and women. however depraved, have kindly human allegiances. But these Things have no allegiance. Like other Things. they are For sale. When one uses the term education system as the name of the system of schools. colleges, universities, and whatnot which the English have established in Ireland, one uses it as a convenient label, just as one uses the term government as a convenient label for the system of administration by police which obtains in Ireland instead of a government. There is no education system in Ireland. The English have established the simulacrum of an education system, but its object is the precise contrary of the object of an education system. Education should foster; this education is meant to repress. Education should inspire; this education is meant to tame. Education should harden; this education is meant to enervate. The English are too wise a people to attempt to educate the Irish in any worthy sense. As well expect them to arm us. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eoin_MacNeill Professor Eoin MacNeill] has compared the English education system in Ireland to the systems of slave education which existed in the ancient pagan republics side by side with the systems intended for the education of freemen. To the children of the free were taught all noble and goodly things which would tend to make them strong and proud and valiant; from the children of the slaves all such dangerous knowledge was hidden.”

Patrick Pearse (1879–1916) Irish revolutionary, shot by the British Army in 1916

The Murder Machine

Life, Women, Men, Children

“We ourselves, the workers, will organize large-scale production on the basis of what capitalism has already created; we shall rely on our own experience as workers, we shall establish strict, iron discipline supported by the state power of the armed workers, we shall reduce the role of he state officials to that of simply carrying out our instructions as responsible, revocable, moderately paid "managers"( of course, with the aid of technicians of all sorts, types and degrees). This is our proletarian revolution”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

3.3, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
(1917)

Support

“I fought till my sword did cleave to my hand; and then they were joined together as if a sword grew out of my arm; and when the blood ran through my fingers, then I fought with most courage.”

John Bunyan The Pilgrim's Progress

Part II, Ch. XI : Mr. Valiant-For-Truth
The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Part II

Courage

“It almost feels like a zombie at this point; it's the walking dead. It's such an abrupt end to what was E3, which had been this huge escalating arms race…. Right now we're in this kind of dicey, do we have an event, what event is it, which one do we go to? I think we're in an uncomfortable transition zone when really the real E3 died a couple of years ago.”

Will Wright (1960) American video game designer and entrepreneur

Will Wright describing the new restructure of the E3 Video Game trade show. Source: kotaku.com http://kotaku.com/5043348/will-wright-says-e3-is-the-walking-dead

Feeling, Thinking, Dead

“We must bear in mind that imperialism is a world system, the last stage of capitalism — and it must be defeated in a world confrontation. The strategic end of this struggle should be the destruction of imperialism. Our share, the responsibility of the exploited and underdeveloped of the world is to eliminate the foundations of imperialism: our oppressed nations, from where they extract capitals, raw materials, technicians and cheap labor, and to which they export new capitals — instruments of domination — arms and all kinds of articles; thus submerging us in an absolute dependence.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Message to the Tricontinental (1967)

World, Dependency

“I'm weary of conjectures,—this must end 'em.
Thus am I doubly armed: my death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me:
This in a moment brings me to an end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act V, scene i.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Life, Death, War, Youth

“We all feel relief that war has not come this time. Every one of us has been passing through days of anxiety; we cannot, however, feel that peace has been established, but that we have nothing but an armistice in a state of war. We have been unable to go in for care-free rejoicing. We have felt that we are in the midst of a tragedy. We have felt humiliation. This has not been a victory for reason and humanity. It has been a victory for brute force. At every stage of the proceedings there have been time limits laid down by the owner and ruler of armed force. The terms have not been terms negotiated; they have been terms laid down as ultimata. We have seen to-day a gallant, civilised and democratic people betrayed and handed over to a ruthless despotism. We have seen something more. We have seen the cause of democracy, which is, in our view, the cause of civilisation and humanity, receive a terrible defeat.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/oct/03/prime-ministers-statement#S5CV0339P0_19381003_HOC_14 in the House of Commons (3 October 1938) against the Munich Agreement. 1930s

War, People, Peace, Feeling

“There is a great danger that the Parliamentary nations and merciful, tolerant forces in the world will be knocked out quite soon by the heavily armed, unmoral dictatorships. But I believe there is still time to organise a European mass, and perhaps a world mass which would confront them, overawe them, and perhaps let their peoples loose upon them.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Robert Cecil (9 April 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 721
The 1930s

People, World, Time

“I was against the idea to commit the ground American troops in South Vietnam for the simple reason that we do not need that. We need the support, the technical support, the technology of the of the uh…American armed forces but we do not need the combat troops at that time…You know, uh…how can we justify with the population if the American come to fight for us? We just can't. So, this error…is main, one of the main error that we made…in the year '65, to bring in the combat troops, American combat troop in South Vietnam. And, then the South Vietnamese armed forces become a kind of uh subletive, you know, the the second reign on the, and the, the national mission of these forces cannot be uh in the Vietnamese hand. Then it, 't…are under the American hand. And later, later on when we see the American withdrawal we changing government back in Washington 'n 'n policy, and then when the element of the American troops is getting out of the country, the disaster we saw later on in '75 is a result of the decision to send the…the troops, the American troop to fight for the Vietnamese troops.”

Nguyen Khanh (1927–2013) South Vietnamese soldier

1980s, Interview with Nguyen Khanh (1981)

Error, Idea, Support, Decision

“The organization of federal units of black soldiers, comprised of both escaped slaves and free men, was taken as an outrage. It struck a raw nerve, never far off in the southern psyche. Fear of a slave insurrection. The prospect of African American men in blue uniforms was taken as an extreme provocation, so much so that it was proposed in the Confederate congress, and endorsed by General Beauregard, the hero of Fort Sumter, that all Federals captured, black or white, should be summarily executed. This proposal was never adopted, but the Confederate congress did eventually pass, in May 1863, a proclamation instructing President Jefferson Davis to exercise 'full and ample retaliation' against the north for arming black soldiers. Finally, there was simple revenge. The Union army's shelling of Fredericksburg several months before had been a particular sore point, that festered for months as the Confederate army went into winter quarters nearby. One officer, determined to fix the destruction there in his mind's eye, made a special visit to that town one last time before setting out on the road north into Maryland and Pennsylvania.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

Andy Hall, "We have received provocation enough..." http://deadconfederates.com/2013/07/01/we-have-received-provocation-enough/ (1 July 2013), Dead Confederates: A Civil War Era Blog.

Men, Fear, Exercises, Revenge

“And I have known the arms already, known them all —
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair! ]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
:And how should I begin?

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”

T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)

Lie, Light, Sea

“Arms! arms! my friends, with speed my arms supply,
'Tis our last hour, and summons us to die;
My arms!—in vain you hold me,—let me go—
Give, give me back this moment to the foe.
'Tis well—we will not tamely perish all,
But die revenged, and triumph in our fall.”

Christopher Pitt (1699–1748) English poet

Book II, line 899
The Æneid of Virgil (1740)

Revenge, Speed

“The three States of Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, comprising the military department of the south, having deliberately declared themselves no longer under the protection of the United States of America, and having taken up arms against the said United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under martial law. This was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible; the persons in these three States — Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina— heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free.”

David Hunter (1802–1886) Union Army general

1860s, General Order No. 11 (May 1862)

Law, Personality, Country

“Violence, contrary to popular belief, is not part of the anarchist philosophy. It has repeatedly been pointed out by anarchist thinkers that the revolution can neither be won, nor the anarchist society established and maintained, by armed violence. Recourse to violence then is an indication of weakness, not of strength, and the revolution with the greatest possibilities of a successful outcome will undoubtedly be the one in which there is no violence, or in which violence is reduced to a minimum, for such a revolution would indicate the near unanimity of the population in the objectives of the revolution. … Violence as a means breeds violence; the cult of personalities as a means breeds dictators--big and small--and servile masses; government--even with the collaboration of socialists and anarchists--breeds more government. Surely then, freedom as a means breeds more freedom, possibly even the Free Society! To Those who say this condemns one to political sterility and the Ivory Tower our reply is that 'realism' and their 'circumstantialism' invariably lead to disaster. We believe there is something more real, more positive and more revolutionary to resisting war than in participation in it; that it is more civilised and more revolutionary to defend the right of a fascist to live than to support the Tribunals which have the legal power to shoot him; that it is more realistic to talk to the people from the gutter than from government benches; that in the long run it is more rewarding to influence minds by discussion than to mould them by coercion.”

Vernon Richards (1915–2001) British activist

"Anarchism and violence" in What Is Anarchism?: An Introduction by Donald Rooum, ed. (London: Freedom Press, 1992, 1995) pp. 50-51.

War, People, Support, Freedom

“He straightway spreads his arms about the garlanded fire, and absorbs the prophetic vapours with glowing countenance.”
Ille coronatos iamdudum amplectitur ignes, fatidicum sorbens vultu flagrante vaporem.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book X, Line 604 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

“Woman would be more charming if one could fall into her arms without falling into her hands.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Epigrams

“During our brief stay on planet Earth, we owe ourselves and our descendants the opportunity to explore—in part because it's fun to do. But there's a far nobler reason. The day our knowledge of the cosmos ceases to expand, we risk regressing to the childish view that the universe figuratively and literally revolves around us. In that bleak world, arms-bearing, resource-hungry people and nations would be prone to act on their "low contracted prejudices." And that would be the last gasp of human enlightenment—until the rise of a visionary new culture that could once again embrace the cosmic perspective.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

2000s

People, World, Knowledge, Universe

“Be it understood, then, that what we have to do, as students of phenomenology, is simply to open our mental eyes and look well at the phenomenon and say what are the characteristics that are never wanting in it, whether that phenomenon be something that outward experience forces upon our attention, or whether it be the wildest of dreams, or whether it be the most abstract and general of the conclusions of science.
The faculties which we must endeavor to gather for this work are three. The first and foremost is that rare faculty, the faculty of seeing what stares one in the face, just as it presents itself, unreplaced by any interpretation, unsophisticated by any allowance for this or for that supposed modifying circumstance. This is the faculty of the artist who sees for example the apparent colors of nature as they appear. When the ground is covered by snow on which the sun shines brightly except where shadows fall, if you ask any ordinary man what its color appears to be, he will tell you white, pure white, whiter in the sunlight, a little greyish in the shadow. But that is not what is before his eyes that he is describing; it is his theory of what ought to be seen. The artist will tell him that the shadows are not grey but a dull blue and that the snow in the sunshine is of a rich yellow. That artist's observational power is what is most wanted in the study of phenomenology. The second faculty we must strive to arm ourselves with is a resolute discrimination which fastens itself like a bulldog upon the particular feature that we are studying, follows it wherever it may lurk, and detects it beneath all its disguises. The third faculty we shall need is the generalizing power of the mathematician who produces the abstract formula that comprehends the very essence of the feature under examination purified from all admixture of extraneous and irrelevant accompaniments.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

Lecture II : The Universal Categories, § 1 : Presentness, CP 5.41 - 42
Pragmatism and Pragmaticism (1903)

Dreams, Color, Nature, Study

“In that one moment, during an era in which sluggers threatened to take over the sport, Carl Hubbell had restored to pitching its true eminence. The man with skill in his arm, courage in his heart, and craft in his brain, could still set down the brute man with the club. It meant more than a man striking out great hitters; it stood for baseball's interpretation of man's growth. We have come away from men with clubs and dim brains. Hubbell's performance those five outs was baseball's way of representing all this, of representing the contest between brains and brawn. Never was brawn so thoroughly routed.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From Greatest Giants of Them All (1967), p. 82
Sports-related

Men, Way, Courage, Sport

“Only the force of American arms, or the extremely credible threat of that force, can bring a fresh face to power.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Jan. 14, 2003 http://www.slate.com/id/2076712/: On Iraq 2000s, 2003

“Europe is equal to its historical task. Against the anti-spiritual, anti-heroic 'ideals' of America-Jewry, Europe pits its metaphysical ideas, its faith in its Destiny, its ethical principles, its heroism. Fearlessly, Europe falls in for battle, knowing it is armed with the mightiest weapon ever forged by History: the superpersonal Destiny of the European organism. Our European Mission is to create the Culture-State-Nation-Imperium of the West, and thereby we shall perform such deeds, accomplish such works, and so transform our world that our distant posterity, when they behold the remains of our buildings and ramparts, will tell their grandchildren that on the soil of Europe once dwelt a tribe of gods.”

Francis Parker Yockey (1917–1960) American writer

The Enemy of Europe (1953)

God, World, Faith, History

“He who warned, uh, the— the British that they weren't going to be takin' away our arms, uh, by ringin' those bells and um makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were going to be secure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

Watch CNN Anchor’s Deadpan Reaction To Sarah Palin’s Version Of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride
Mediaite
2011-06-02
Frances
Martel
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/watch-cnn-anchors-deadpan-reaction-to-sarah-palins-version-of-paul-reveres-midnight-ride/
2011-06-05
Sarah Palin’s History Lesson: Paul Revere Warned The British
ThinkProgress
Tanya
Somander
2011-06-03
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/06/03/235571/palin-paul-revere/
2011-06-05
describing Paul Revere
posed question: "What have you seen so far today, and what are you going to take away from your visit?"
2014

Horse

“I view with utmost concern the imposition of martial law in Maguindanao province, especially after the reported discovery of arms caches and documents related to past elections. I hope that this is not the case of "Maguindanao today-the Philippines tomorrow."”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Statement: on the Declaration of Martial Law in Maguindanao

Law, Hope, Past

“You know what, I didn't mess up about Paul Revere. Here's what Paul Revere did, he warned the Americans that the British were coming, the British were coming, and they were going to try to take our arms away and we gotta make sure that we were protecting ourselves and shoring up all our ammunitions and our firearms so that they couldn't take them, but remember that the British had already been there, many soldiers, for seven years in that area. And part of Paul Revere's ride — and it wasn’t just one ride — he was a courier, he was a messenger. Part of his ride was to warn the British that we're already there. That, hey, you're not going to succeed. You're not going to take American arms. You are not going to beat our own well-armed persons, individual, private militia that we have. He did warn the British. And in a shout-out, gotcha type of question that was asked of me, I answered candidly, and I know my American history.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

Palin: 'I didn't mess up about Paul Revere' Crooks and Liars 2011-06-05 http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/palin-i-didnt-mess-about-paul-revere 2011-06-05 On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere rode to Lexington, Massachusetts, to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were marching to arrest them. http://www.paulreverehouse.org/ride/real.html 2011

History, Question, Parting, Personality

“My father said "Son, we're lucky in this town.
It's a beautiful place to be born.
It just wraps its arms around you.
Nobody crowds you, nobody goes it alone.
That you know flag flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone:
Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't."”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

"Long Walk Home"
Song lyrics, Magic (2007)

Beauty, Flying

“No, my friend, Germany will not declare war on us [at this moment]. But in my opinion the European situation is such that a great armed conflict is inevitable at some time which I cannot foresee, and our duty is to prepare for the worst.”

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) French politician

Letter to Georg Brandes (9 January 1906), quoted in David Robin Watson, Georges Clemenceau: A Political Biography (London: Eyre Methuen, 1974), pp. 220-221.

War, Time