Quotes about arm
page 23

Ramsay MacDonald photo

“The only reason from beginning to end is that our foreign office is anti-German and that the Admiralty was anxious to seize any opportunity for using the Navy in battle practice. … Never did we arm our people and ask them to give us their lives for less good cause than this.”

Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) British statesman; prime minister of the United Kingdom

Leicester Pioneer (7 August 1914), quoted in The Times (9 April 1918), p. 8 and The Times (18 January 1924), p. 14
1910s

Tony Benn photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“How sincere and confidential we can be, saying all that lies in the mind, and yet go away feeling that all is yet unsaid, from the incapacity of the parties to know each other, although they use the same words! My companion assumes to know my mood and habit of thought, and we go on from explanation to explanation until all is said which words can, and we leave matters just as they were at first, because of that vicious assumption. Is it that every man believes every other to be an incurable partialist, and himself a universalist? I talked yesterday with a pair of philosophers; I endeavored to show my good men that I love everything by turns and nothing long; that I loved the centre, but doated on the superficies; that I loved man, if men seemed to me mice and rats; that I revered saints, but woke up glad that the old pagan world stood its ground and died hard; that I was glad of men of every gift and nobility, but would not live in their arms. Could they but once understand that I loved to know that they existed, and heartily wished them God-speed, yet, out of my poverty of life and thought, had no word or welcome for them when they came to see me, and could well consent to their living in Oregon, for any claim I felt on them, — it would be a great satisfaction.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Claude Louis Hector de Villars photo

“I was unable before starting to formulate a plan of campaign because I did not know whether I should find an army there … In fact I found the troops in a deplorable condition, without clothes, without arms, and without bread.”

Claude Louis Hector de Villars (1653–1734) Marshal General of France

Villars reflecting on the state of the French army in 1709 when he took command, quoted in Winston Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times

Robert E. Howard photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo

“That I address you as a friend is no formality. I own no foes. My business in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind, irrespective of race, colour or creed. … We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents… But your own writings and pronouncements and those of your friends and admirers leave no room for doubt that many of your acts are monstrous and unbecoming of human dignity, especially in the estimation of men like me who believe in human friendliness. Such are your humiliation of Czechoslovakia, the rape of Poland and the swallowing of Denmark. I am aware that your view of life regards such spoliations as virtuous acts. But we have been taught from childhood to regard them as acts degrading humanity…Hence we cannot possibly wish success to your arms…. But ours is a unique position. We resist British imperialism no less than Nazism… If there is a difference, it is in degree. One-fifth of the human race has been brought under the British heel by means that will not bear scrutiny… Our resistance to it does not mean harm to the British people. We seek to convert them, not to defeat them on the battle-field… No spoliator can compass his end without a certain degree of co-operation, willing or unwilling, of the victim…. The rulers may have our land and bodies but not our souls…. We know what the British heel means for us and the non-European races of the world. But we would never wish to end the British rule with German aid… We have found in non-violence a force which, if organized, can without doubt match itself against a combination of all the most violent forces in the world… If not the British, some other power will certainly improve upon your method and beat you with your own weapon. You are leaving no legacy to your people of which they would feel proud.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Letter to Hitler. 24 December 1940. Quoted from Koenraad Elst: Return of the Swastika (2007). (Also in https://web.archive.org/web/20100310135408/http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/gandhihitler.html)
1940s

Han Kuo-yu photo

“Kaohsiung is opening its arms to all cities, nations and territories of the world.”

Han Kuo-yu (1957) Taiwanese political figure

Han Kuo-yu (2019) cited in " Kaohsiung mayor departs for visit to Malaysia, Singapore http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201902240005.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 24 February 2019.
2019

Tulsi Gabbard photo

“Our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War & arms race, costing us trillions of our hard earned tax payer dollars & countless lives. This insanity must end.”

Tulsi Gabbard (1981) U.S. Representative from Hawaii's 2nd congressional district

Twitter post https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard, (27 Jun 2019)
Twitter account, June 2019

Tulsi Gabbard photo

“Join us as we work for a #PeaceDividend—taking the trillions spent on regime change #war & nuclear arms race & investing them to ensure #healthcare for all, combat climate change, rebuild our infrastructure, & meet the needs of all Americans…”

Tulsi Gabbard (1981) U.S. Representative from Hawaii's 2nd congressional district

Twitter, https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1103961763614203904 (8 March 2019)
Twitter account, March 2019

Tulsi Gabbard photo
James Monroe photo
Joan of Arc photo

“I do not fear men-at-arms; my way has been made plain before me. If there be men-at-arms my Lord God will make a way for me to go to my Lord Dauphin. For that am I come.”

Joan of Arc (1412–1431) French folk heroine and Roman Catholic saint

Often misquoted as I am not afraid; I was born to do this.
As given in The Life of Joan of Arc (1909) by Anatole France, tr. Winifred Stevens, vol. i, p. 97, referencing Trials, vol. i, p. 449.

Lala Lajpat Rai photo

“I am not afraid of seven crores of Muslims in India but I think, the seven crores in India, plus the armed hordes of Afghanistan, Central Asia, Arabia, Mesopotamia and Turkey will be irresistible. Are we then doomed?”

Lala Lajpat Rai (1865–1928) Indian author and politician

What India Owes Lala Lajpat Rai by Aravindan Neelakandan https://swarajyamag.com/ideas/what-india-owes-lala-lajpat-rai

Lala Lajpat Rai photo

“There is one point more which has been troubling me very much of late and one which I want you to think carefully and that is the question of Hindu-Mohamedan unity. I have devoted most of my time during the last six months to the study of Muslim history and Muslim Law and I am inclined to think, it is neither possible nor practicable. Assuming and admitting the sincerity of the Mohamedan leaders in the Non-cooperation movement, I think their religion provides an effective bar to anything of the kind. You remember the conversation, I reported to you in Calcutta, which I had with Hakim Ajmalkhan and Dr. Kitchlew. There is no finer Mohamedan in Hindustan than Hakimsaheb but can any other Muslim leader override the Quran? I can only hope that my reading of Islamic Law is incorrect, and nothing would relieve me more than to be convinced that it is so. But if it is right then it comes to this that although we can unite against the British we cannot do so to rule Hindustan on British lines, we cannot do so to rule Hindustan on democratic lines. What is then the remedy? I am not afraid of seven crores in Hindustan but I think the seven crores of Hindustan plus the armed hosts of Afghanistan, Central Asia, Arabia, Mesopotamia and Turkey will be irresistible. I do honestly and sincerely believe in the necessity or desirability of Hindu-Muslim unity. I am also fully prepared to trust the Muslim leaders, but what about the injunctions of the Quran and Hadis? The leaders cannot override them. Are we then doomed? I hope not. I hope learned mind and wise head will find some way out of this difficulty.”

Lala Lajpat Rai (1865–1928) Indian author and politician

in B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)

Edward Heath photo
Clement Attlee photo
Edmund Burke photo
Edmund Burke photo
Edmund Burke photo

“Arms are not yet taken up; but virtually, you are in a civil war. You are not people of differing opinions in a public council;—you are enemies, that must subdue or be subdued, on the one side or the other. If your hands are not on your swords, their knives will be at your throats. There is no medium,—there is no temperament,—there is no compromise with Jacobinism.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to William Windham (30 December 1794), quoted in R. B. McDowell (ed.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VIII: September 1794–April 1796 (Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 104
1790s

Fidel Castro photo

“I sincerely believe revolution to be the source of legal right; but the nocturnal armed assault of March 10 could never be considered a revolution.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

ibid, p 92
History Will Absolve Me (October 16th, 1953)

Seneca the Younger photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“Today we need a nation of minute men; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

“Message to Those Participating in Roosevelt Day Commemoration (29 January 1961) http://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/life-of-john-f-kennedy/john-f-kennedy-quotations/commemorative-message-on-roosevelt-day." Papers of John F. Kennedy. Presidential Papers, "New Minute Men Urged by Kennedy," The New York Times(30 January 1961) pg. 13
1961

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar photo
Anwar Sadat photo

“Russians can give you arms, but only the United States can give you a solution.”

Anwar Sadat (1918–1981) Egyptian president and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

[Fradkin, Hillel, Libby, Lewis, September/October 2012, Learning from Sadat: The Dividends of American Resolve, http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/learning-sadat-dividends-american-resolve, World Affairs, Washington, D.C., World Affairs Institute, October 9, 2018]

Daniel Ortega photo
Oswald Spengler photo
William Saroyan photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo

“But how shall the condition, the true subjection of the other to the law, be given? Not through signs of repentance, promises of future better behavior, offers of damages, etc.; for there is no ground to believe his sincerity. It is quite as possible that he has been forced by his present weakness into this repentance, and is only awaiting a better opportunity to renew the attack. This uncertainty does not warrant the other in laying down his arms and thus again exposing all his safety. He will, therefore, continue to exercise his compulsion; but since the condition of the right is problematical, his exercise also will be problematical. t is the same with the violator. If he has offered the complete restitution which the law inevitably requires, and it being possible that he may now have voluntarily subjected himself in all sincerity to the law, it is also likely that he will oppose any further restriction of his freedom, (any further compulsion by the other,) but his right to make this opposition is also problematical. It seems, therefore, that the decisive point can not be ascertained, since it rests in the ascertainment of inner sincerity, which can not be proved, but is a matter of conscience for each. The ground of decision, indeed, could be given only, if it were possible to ascertain the whole future life of the violator.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 145

Rajiv Gandhi photo

“As Rajiv Gandhi was going past me, I got a thought in my head. I thought of how India was helping the terrorists with money, arms and military training. As these thoughts came into my head, when Gandhi was about two or three feet away from me. Yes, I felt an emotion. I despised the Indian Prime Minister. I aimed a blow with my rifle at Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi�s back, below the shoulder.”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

Wijemuni Vijitha Rohana, the person who attacked Rajiv Gandhi Colombo, in Rohana: Courage of his convictions (29 July 2007) http://www.nation.lk/2007/07/29/special5.htmVijitha
In Rohana: Courage of his convictions http://www.nation.lk/2007/07/29/special5.htmVijitha

Frederick B. Maurice photo

“As a soldier who has spent a quarter of his life in the study of the science of arms, let me tell you I went into the British Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I believe now that if you prepare thoroughly and efficiently for war, you get war.”

Frederick B. Maurice (1871–1951) British Army general and historian

Speaking in Carnegie Hall, New York City, on 4 April 1919.
[New York Times, 5 April 1919, 13, Maurice Criticises Peace Conferees, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B00E6DC1E3BEE3ABC4D53DFB2668382609EDE]

Wilhelm Keitel photo
Man Ray photo
Richard Wright photo
Jack LaLanne photo

“At age 70 the guy towed 70 boats carrying 70 people across the Long Beach harbor, with both arms and feet shackled.”

Jack LaLanne (1914–2011) American exercise instructor

Robert Kennedy, in "Live Young Forever: 12 Steps to Optimum Health, Fitness and Longevity", p. 10

Eudora Welty photo
Gilles Villeneuve photo
Samuel Adams photo

“And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of time press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless when necessary for the defence of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Rejected resolution for a clause to add to the first article of the U.S. Constitution, in the debates of the Massachusetts Convention of 1788 (6 February 1788); this has often been attributed to Adams, but he is nowhere identified as the person making the resolution in Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Held in the year 1788 And which finally ratified the Constitution of the United States. (1856) p. 86. https://archive.org/details/debatesandproce00peirgoog
Disputed

Robert Greene photo
Patrick Henry photo

“The great object is that every man be armed… Everyone who is able may have a gun.”

Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States

Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_12s27.html(14 June 1788). Debates and other Proceedings of the Convention of Virginia, taken in shorthand by David Robertson of Petersburg, at 271, 275 2d ed. Richmond (1805)
1780s

Bernard Cornwell photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“I am certain that, at some time in the future, President Xi and I, together with President Putin of Russia, will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race. The U.S. spent 716 Billion Dollars this year. Crazy!”

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

Twitter 7:30 AM https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1069584730880974849?fbclid · (3 Dec 2018)
2010s, 2018, December

James Russell Lowell photo
Lewis Gompertz photo
Victor Hugo photo
William Lloyd Garrison photo
T.S. Eliot photo
Dylan Moran photo
William Cobbett photo

“The profession of arms is always the most honourable.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

‘Boxing’, Political Register (10 August 1805), p. 199
1800s

Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Barry McCaffrey photo

“We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the CIA.”

Barry McCaffrey (1942) United States Army general

Quoted in State-Sanctioned Torture in the Age of Trump https://truthout.org/articles/state-sanctioned-torture-in-the-age-of-trump/, by Marjorie Cohn, Truthout (23 January 2017)

Benjamin Creme photo
Jackson Browne photo
Denise Chávez photo

“…If I say I ’m not a Chicana I might as well cut off my arm or my leg. And if I say I ’m not a feminist, well, I might as well cut off my foot. The whole package goes together.”

Denise Chávez (1948) American writer

On not feeling limited being deemed as a Chicana writer in “AN INTERVIEW WITH DENISE CHAVEZ” https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1161&context=ijcs in Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies (1994)

Buckminster Fuller photo

“Up to now, the world of politics doesn’t know that. That’s why all nations are dependent on armaments, why we have the arms race.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Buckminster Fuller Talks Politics (1982)

Abimael Guzmán photo
Abimael Guzmán photo
Abimael Guzmán photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
Joyce Kilmer photo

“When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm
Across green fields and yellow hills of hay
The little twittering birds laugh in his way
And poise triumphant on his shining arm.
He bears a sword of flame but not to harm
The wakened life that feels his quickening sway
And barnyard voices shrilling "It is day!"”

Take by his grace a new and alien charm. </p><p> But in the city, like a wounded thing
That limps to cover from the angry chase,
He steals down streets where sickly arc-lights sing,
And wanly mock his young and shameful face;
And tiny gongs with cruel fervor ring
In many a high and dreary sleeping place.</p>
"Alarm Clocks"
Trees and Other Poems (1914)

Joyce Kilmer photo
Wesley Clark photo
Dorothy Thompson photo
Enoch Powell photo

“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.'”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

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.</p><p>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.</p>
Source: 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 (1991), pp. 487-488

John F. Kennedy photo
Niccolo Machiavelli photo
Benito Mussolini photo
Paul Offit photo
J. C. Kumarappa photo

“The Western nations have four arms-defensive and offensive-the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Church.”

J. C. Kumarappa (1892–1960) Jōsaph Celladurai; b. 01/04/1892; economist; mem., Indian Planning Comm.; protagonist of Gandhian principle…

Shri J. C. Kumarappa. Can Indira Accept this Challenge? Dadoomiyan, S. Vijayanand Bharathi. Vora, 1966. as Quoted in Madhya Pradesh (India)., Goel, S. R., Niyogi, M. B. (1956, [1998 reprint]). Vindicated by time: The Niyogi Committee report on Christian missionary activities.

T.S. Eliot photo
Eminem photo
E.E. Cummings photo
Jair Bolsonaro photo

“Racism is rare in Brazil. I'm fed up with this mania of always pitting blacks against whites, gays against heterosexuals. People say I'm homophobic, racist, fascist, xenophobic, but I won the election. [...] If I was racist, what would I have done on seeing a black fall into the water? I'd have folded my arms.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

In an interview to Luciana Gimenez broadcasted on 7 May 2019. Racism 'rare' in Brazil, says far right Bolsonaro https://www.france24.com/en/20190508-racism-rare-brazil-says-far-right-bolsonaro. France 24 (8 May 2019).
2019

Leo Tolstoy photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo

“It is the place where Collectivist and Socialistic experiments are tried. It is the place where a new revolutionary spirit finds its instruments and collects its arms.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

On the London County Council; speech to the metropolitan division of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations in the Queen's Hall, Langham Place (7 November 1894), quoted in The Times (8 November 1894), p. 4
1890s

Richard Dawkins photo

“Another force driving progressive evolution is the so-called "arms-race."”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Prey animals evolve faster running speeds because predators do. Consequently predators have to evolve even faster running speeds, and so on, in an escalating spiral. Such arms races probably account for the spectacularly advanced engineering of eyes, ears, brains, bat "radar" and all the other high-tech weaponry that animals display.
The Evolutionary Future of Man (1993)

“There is no lack of bravery in the ranks of our armed forces, but bureaucratic cowardice rules in our intelligence establishment”

Ralph Peters (1952) American military officer, writer, pundit

as well as at the higher levels of military command
Source: 2000s, Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World (2002), p. 196

William Ewart Gladstone photo
George Marshall photo
Will Durant photo
Henry Kissinger photo

“The accumulation of nuclear arms has to be constrained if mankind is not to destroy itself.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

Press conference held on 13 February, 1974

“Let go of my arm, or I will scream for God.”

“He never helped you. Have you forgotten?”
Source: Titus Alone (1959), Chapter 56 (p. 910)

Mao Zedong photo

“Armed with Marxist-Leninist theory and ideology, the Communist Party of China has brought a new style of work to the Chinese people, a style of work that essentially entails integrating theory with practice, forging close links with the masses and practicing self-criticism.”

(zh-CN) 以马克思列宁主义的理论思想武装起来的中国共产党,在中国人民中产生了新的工作作风,这主要的就是理论和实践相结合的作风,和人民群众紧密地联系在一起的作风以及自我批评的作风。
1950s, On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (1957)

Maximilien Robespierre photo

“To be armed for personal defence is the right of every man, to be armed to defend freedom and the existence of the common fatherland is the right of every citizen.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

On the organisation of the National Guard (5 December 1790)
Misc Quotes

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo