Quotes about attack
page 13

“I think intellectuals should be fascinated by my rise, what it reveals about the time. My critics are irrelevant, though. It tells how much I'm getting to them by how vitriolic they are. They refuse to deal with the ideas. But reviews don't reflect anything; the books are selling. A friend told me, "The attacks make you."”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Playboy interview (May 1995)

Books, Idea, Thinking, Time

“The usual image of war today held by many experts as well as most laymen can be summed up in the phrase "orgiastic spasm of destruction," or, "spasm war." Many believe that if one single button is pressed all the buttons will be pressed, and that some 30 minutes or so later missiles will rain enough destruction to terminate the defender's existence as a nation; subsequently, some minutes or hours later, a similar rain of death and destruction will annihilate the attacking nation. Within perhaps an hour or two the war will be effectively over-both combatants having received death blows-with only one question left; "How bad will the radiation be for the rest of the world?"”

Herman Kahn (1922–1983) American futurist

Herman Kahn. " Thinking about the unthinkable." Horizon Press.(1962) pg: 59

Death, War, World, Question

“Nine days after an attack on the United States, this tiny clique of intellectuals [Neocons] was telling the President of the United States…that if he did not follow their war plans, he would be charged publicly with a "decisive surrender" to terrorism.”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

2010s, Where the Right Went Wrong (2004)

War, Decision

“Recently, I was evicted of contempt of court over my online editorial about (bleep). I was sentenced to pay a $100,000 fine, or go to jail for 50 days. I believe this was the highest personal fine ever issued in Australia. Other websites, newspapers, and radio stations were not charged for similar or even more controversial material. Yet the judge attacked me for portraying myself as a scapegoat — a whipping boy — and he punished me accordingly. Now it is true, I have prior convictions. In 1987, I was fined $15,000 and jailed for exposing a paedophile priest Michael Glennon. Glennon had already been to jail for raping a 10-year-old girl, but was still running a camp for kids in country Victoria. And he was still a Catholic priest. He eventually went to jail, and he died behind bars several weeks ago. And to be honest, I feel good about that — he was an evil, evil man. I also spent five months under house arrest in 2011 for breaching court suppression orders, revealing the names of two serial sex offenders at a rally outside Victoria's Parliament House. About 4000 other people also shouted their names. That one cost me my radio job at 3AW. And I was fined and did 250 hours of community service for naming a judge who ruled that a man could not be charged for raping his wife under a 300-year-old British law. In Victoria, that law has since been changed. Now, here we go again. I have made a decision not taken lightly. On principle, I will not pay the $100,000 fine, which was due today. Instead, I'll go to jail. I'll go to jail for 50 days; to draw attention to all the suspended sentences for crimes of violence and child pornography; for the obscenely short sentences given to king hit killers; to draw attention to my campaign for a national register of convicted sex offenders. Already, 30,000 of you have signed up. I'm happy to serve just 50 days of the many years that the convicted paedophile ex-magistrate should be serving. That pervert, Simon Cooper, wasn't even put on the sex offenders register. If my going to jail draws attention to the judges and magistrates, out of touch with community expectations and your safety, then every one of my 50 days behind bars will be worth it. And so I'll go to jail.”

Derryn Hinch (1944) New Zealand–Australian media personality

Today Tonight, 16 January 2014.

People, Law, Sex, Feeling

“I shall attack Chemistry, like a Shark.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Letter to Sir Humphry Davy (15 July 1800)
Letters

“We’re at war with Japan. We were attacked by Japan. Do you want to kill Japanese, or would you rather have Americans killed?”

Curtis LeMay (1906–1990) American general and politician

From his autobiography, also requoted in Rhodes, 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb', p. 596

War

“He was simply a nadhir, a messenger with a warning, and should approach the Quraysh humbly, avoid provocation, and be careful not to attack their gods. This is what the great prophets had done in the past.28 A prophet had to be altruistic; he must not trumpet his own opinions egotistically or trample on the sensibilities of others, but should always put the welfare of the community first.”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

Muhammad: A Prophet of Our Times
Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001)

God, Communication, Past

“Impulses of revenge lead to ressentiment the more they change into actual *vindictiveness*, the more their direction shifts toward indeterminate groups of objects which need only share one common characteristic, and the less they are satisfied by vengeance taken on a specific object. If the desire for revenge remains permanently unsatisfied, and especially if the feeling of “being right (lacking in an outburst of rage, but an integral part of revenge) is intensified into the idea of a “duty,” the individual may actually wither away and die. The vindictive person is instinctively and without a conscious act of volition drawn toward events which may give rise to vengefulness, or he tends to see injurious intentions in all kinds of perfectly innocent actions and remarks of others. Great touchiness is indeed frequently a symptom of a vengeful character. The vindictive person is always in search of objects, and in fact he attacks—in the belief that he is simply wreaking vengeance. This vengeance restores his damaged feeling of personal value, his injured “honor,” or it brings “satisfaction” for the wrongs he has endured. When it is repressed, vindictiveness leads to ressentiment, a process which is intensified when the *imagination* of vengeance, too, is repressed—and finally the very emotion of revenge itself. Only then does this *state of mind* become associated with the tendency to detract from the other person's value, which brings an illusory easing of the tension."”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Feeling, Imagination, Search, Idea

“In order to carry out orders from the southern army I sent 50,000 troops to Leyte, but due to air and submarine attacks half of them were lost.”

Tomoyuki Yamashita (1885–1946) general in the Imperial Japanese Army

Quoted in "Yamashita Denies Any Atrocity Link" - New York Times - November 29, 1945.

“If our opinions rest upon solid ground, those who attack them do not make us angry, but themselves ridiculous.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 215

“First, we will take Eastern Europe, then the masses of Asia, then we will encircle the United States which will be the last bastion of capitalism. We will not have to attack. It will fall like an overripe fruit into our hands.”

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

Cardinal Francis Spellman used this attribution in his speech to the 1954 National Convention of the American Legion. It has been debunked repeatedly, for example in They Never Said It (1999) by Paul F. Boller and John H. George. The last two sentences have also been misattributed to Nikita Krushchev. The metaphor of the ripe fruit appears much earlier in US policy discussions about Cuba:
If an apple, severed by the tempest from its native tree, cannot choose but fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its unnatural connexion with Spain, and incapable of self-support, can only gravitate towards the North American Union.
John Quincy Adams, letter to Hugh Nelson (28 April 1823)
The fruit will fall into our hands when it is ripe, without an officious shaking of the tree. Cuba will be ours … in due season, without the wicked impertinence of war.
Parke Godwin, "Annexation" (February 1854)
Misattributed

“The Mammoth we attacked was not Rommel's after all. […] Rommel himself, we'll learn later, was not in that camp and never had been. At the time of our raid, he was with the 15th Panzer Division, somewhere west of Kidney Ridge, in the thick of the fighting at El Alamein.”

Steven Pressfield book Killing Rommel

Richmond Chapman, p. 177
Killing Rommel (2008)

Learning, Time, Fight

“Actually, even with tested missiles, results of attacks are not really mathematically predictable. The probability of extreme variations in performance, the upper and lower limits, cannot be calculated accurately. But laymen or narrow professionals persist in regarding the matter as a simple problem in engineering and physics.”

Herman Kahn (1922–1983) American futurist

The Magnum Opus; On Thermonuclear War

Mathematics, Problem

“After some time he proceeded to Orissa with the intention of jihãd. He attacked places in the neighbourhood of that province and laid them waste, and destroyed the temples after demolishing them…”

Nizamuddin Ahmad (1551–1594) historian

Sultãn Mahmûd bin Ibrãhîm Sharqî (AD 1440-1457)Orissa
Tabqãt-i-Akharî

Time

“The history of mathematics may be instructive as well as agreeable; it may not only remind us of what we have, but may also teach us to increase our store. Says De Morgan, "The early history of the mind of men with regards to mathematics leads us to point out our own errors; and in this respect it is well to pay attention to the history of mathematics." It warns us against hasty conclusions; it points out the importance of a good notation upon the progress of the science; it discourages excessive specialization on the part of the investigator, by showing how apparently distinct branches have been found to possess unexpected connecting links; it saves the student from wasting time and energy upon problems which were, perhaps, solved long since; it discourages him from attacking an unsolved problem by the same method which has led other mathematicians to failure; it teaches that fortifications can be taken by other ways than by direct attack, that when repulsed from a direct assault it is well to reconnoitre and occupy the surrounding ground and to discover the secret paths by which the apparently unconquerable position can be taken.”

Florian Cajori book A History of Mathematics

Source: A History of Mathematics (1893), pp. 1-2; Cited in: Robert Edouard Moritz. Memorabilia mathematica; or, The philomath's quotation-book https://archive.org/stream/memorabiliamathe00moriiala#page/198/mode/2up, (1914) p. 90; Study and research in mathematics

Men, Secret, Way, Error

“What are we to make of a creation in which the routine activity is for organisms to be tearing others apart with teeth of all types—biting, grinding flesh, plant stalks, bones between molars, pushing the pulp greedily down the gullet with delight, incorporating its essence into one's own organization, and then excreting with foul stench and gasses the residue. Everyone reaching out to incorporate others who are edible to him. The mosquitoes bloating themselves on blood, the maggots, the killer-bees attacking with a fury and a demonism, sharks continuing to tear and swallow while their own innards are being torn out—not to mention the daily dismemberment and slaughter in "natural" accidents of all types: an earthquake buries alive 70 thousand bodies in Peru, automobiles make a pyramid heap of over 50 thousand a year in the U. S. alone, a tidal wave washes over a quarter of a million in the Indian Ocean. Creation is a nightmare spectacular taking place on a planet that has been soaked for hundreds of millions of years in the blood of all its creatures. The soberest conclusion that we could make about what has actually been taking place on the planet for about three billion years is that it is being turned into a vast pit of fertilizer. But the sun distracts our attention, always baking the blood dry, making things grow over it, and with its warmth giving the hope that comes with the organism's comfort and expansiveness.”

Ernest Becker book The Denial of Death

"Psychology and Religion: What Is the Heroic Individual?", pp. 282–283
The Denial of Death (1973)

Hope, Nature, Tear, Bee

“Hayek’s blind spot with regard to politics was clear in the early 1980s when the first Thatcher government, in an attempt to reduce inflation and bring the public finances closer to a balanced budget, was raising interest rates and cutting public spending. As he had done during the 1930s, Hayek attacked these policies as not being severe enough. It would be better, he told me in a conversation we had around this time, if Thatcher imposed a more drastic contraction on the economy so that the wage-setting power of the trade unions could be broken. He appeared unfazed by unemployment, which was already higher (more than three million people) than at any time since the 1930s, and would rise much further if his recommendations were accepted.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

The Friedrich Hayek I knew, and what he got right - and wrong (2015)

People, Appearance, Time

“blogging over serious aspects can really affect the changes. As for e. g. there was an incident of 26/11 terrorist attack which was seriously taken up by the bloggers and the blog world and bloggers (specially Hindi bloggers) seriously expressed their grave concern over it and finally the result is in front of you. Like wise there is another example of homosexuality last year. When live in relationship was being promoted. Then also the blog world took up that matter seriously and the result is before you.”

Ravindra Prabhat (1969) Hindi poet, scholar, journalist, novelist and short story writer

"Today we have many type of new applications, which will help in promoting Hindi very fast on Internet : Ravindra Prabhat" (7 february 2012) http://www.southasiatoday.org/2012/02/today-we-have-any-type-of-new.html

World, Change

“Nowadays, ever since the attack on the Pentagon in 2001, the capital has been clamped down. How is this manifested? Giant planters blocking government buildings, giant planters barricading every other street. Theoretically, the concrete flowerpots are solid enough to fend off a truck bomb. And yet the effect is ridiculous, as if we believe we can protect ourselves from suicide bombers by hiding behind blooming pots of marigolds, flowers whose main defensive property is repelling rabbits.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation (2005), pp. 23-24

Flowers, Suicide

“Should I be surprised that dangers which have always surrounded me should at last attack me? A great part of mankind, when about to sail, do not think of a storm. I shall never be ashamed of a reporter of bad news in a good cause.”

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Variant translation: I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
On Tranquility of the Mind

Thinking, Parting

“Men often become nonviolent in societies that (1) have adequate amounts of food, (2) have adequate amounts of water, and (3) perceive themselves as isolated from attack. For example, the Tahitian men, the Minoan men on Crete, and the Central Malaysian Semai were nonviolent during the period in their history when all three of these conditions prevailed.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part 1: The Myth of Male Power, p. 77.

Men, Food, History, Water

“The true artist always refuses to conform to any standards others than his own. That’s why the attacks in Russia against Shostakovitch and Prokofiev are identical to the attacks that have been made here against American pioneers of abstract painting like Davis, Holty, or Morris. In Russia it was Malevich and Gabo, in this country at the moment it is people like Rothko, Baziotes, Pollock, my self and many others who are being attacked. The names may vary, but the methods, the motives; the objects of attack are essentially the same. Only meritocracy is forever immune, because it is forever ready to conform.”

Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974) American artist

quote of Gottlieb, on the attacks on artistic freedom in 1948
Lecture at Forum: the Artist Speaks, museum of Modern Art, New York, May 5, 1948.
1940s

People, Quotes, Motivation, Freedom

“There were a lot of people living in his time who never did latch on to the idea that the curve of technological progress was not a flat slanting line like a diving board, but a geometrical curve like a ski-jump. These wistful and mixed-up souls were always suffering from attacks of belated conservatism, clutching suddenly at this dying thing and that, trying to keep it or bring it back. It wasn’t real conservatism at all, of course, but an unthought longing for the dear old days when one could predict what would be there tomorrow, if not next week. Unable to get the big picture, they welcomed the conveniences, the miniaturization of this and the speed of that, and then were angrily confused when their support of these things changed their world.”

Theodore Sturgeon book Venus Plus X

Section 11 (p. 33)
Venus Plus X (1960)

People, World, Soul, Idea

“Israel has gone mad. It's attacking, doing the same thing to the Palestinian and Lebanese people that they have criticised - and with reason - the Holocaust. But this is a new Holocaust.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

In protest of Israel's military offensive in Lebanon. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5258722.stm 2006

People, Madness

“Here, according to the mythology of the liberals, was a peaceful little country that Nixon attacked. The fact that there were four North Vietnamese divisions within 30 miles of Saigon coming across the border killing Americans—killing 500 a week starting within two weeks of Nixon’s inauguration—was ignored in the debate on Cambodia by protesters emphasizing the technical neutrality of Cambodia and ignoring that its ruler had invited our response.”

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

On bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam war. From an interview with the Atlantic magazine - "The Lessons of Henry Kissinger" https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/12/the-lessons-of-henry-kissinger/505868/ (10 November 2016) 2010s

Peace, Country

“The uploads replicate and develop relationships. Most of them go very bad. You sometimes get an entire virtual planet of four billion people devoted to building prayer wheels in an attempt at a denial of service attack on God.”

Ken MacLeod (1954) Scottish science fiction writer

Newton's Wake
Other works

God, People

“When the next year the raiders returned and landed near Jarrow they were stoutly attacked while harassed by bad weather. Many were killed. Their "king" was captured and put to a cruel death, and the fugitives carried so grim a tale back to Denmark that for forty years the English coasts were unravaged.”

Winston S. Churchill book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

On a Viking Raid in 794 A.D.; Vol I; The Birth of Britain.
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956–58)

Death, Weather

“Defenceless, adj. Unable to attack.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Far back in history, there is evidence that men who have attempted to solve the riddle of water have been bitterly attacked. Every attempt to explain the nature of water in old books has been demolished in the later editions. In any case, maintaining the sense of mystery about water ensures the prosperity of the capital intensive economy, for financial interest thrives only on a defective economy. If the riddle surrounding the origins of water were solved, it would be possible to make as much pure water available as required at any location; in this way vast areas of desert would become fertile. As a consequence, the selling values of the produce would sink so low that there would be no more incentive to speculate, or to develop agricultural machinery. The concept of unrestricted production and cheap machine power is so revolutionary, that the way of life all over the world would experience a change. Maintaining the mystery of water, therefore, maintains the value of capital, so every attempt to come nearer to an explanation is attacked.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Living Water

Life, Men, Books, World

“They’re Mabden, of course. They are afraid of the city. Afraid of almost everything. And being permitted no weapons with which they can attack what they fear, they are reduced to what you see. It seems the Mabden can only kill or run away. Their brains are of no use to them.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 2, Chapter 6 (p. 581)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

Fear

“And on this last day of the century, I promise Israel that it will see more suicide attacks, for we will write our history with blood.”

Hassan Nasrallah (1960) Secretary General of Hezbollah

Speech at a Hezbollah rally in Beirut. December 31, 1999. Quote, 1990s Source: Bruns International http://www.unb.ca/web/bruns/9900/issue14/intnews/israel.html / Associated Press.

History, Suicide

“I do believe we are going to have a major war, with Japan and Germany, and that the war is going to start by a very serious surprise attack and defeat of U. S. armed forces, and that there is going to be a major revulsion on the part of the political power in Washington against all those in command at sea, and they are going to be thrown out, though it won't be their fault necessarily. And I wish to be in a position of sufficient prominence so that I will then be considered as one to be sent to sea, because that appears to be the route.”

Chester W. Nimitz (1885–1966) United States Navy fleet admiral

On his expectations of war, and that he would someday become the Chief of Naval Operations, in a conversation during the mid 1930s with his son, Chester W. Nimitz, Jr.; as quoted in Nimitz (1976) by E. B. Potter. ISBN 0870214926

War, Appearance, Parting, Sea

“We have been attempting to relieve ourselves and the other nations from the old theory of competitive armaments. In spite of all the arguments in favor of great military forces, no nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace or to insure its victory in time of war. No nation ever will. Peace and security are more likely to result from fair and honorable dealings, and mutual agreements for a limitation of armaments among nations, than by any attempt at competition in squadrons and battalions. No doubt this country could, if it wished to spend more money, make a better military force, but that is only part of the problem which confronts our Government. The real question is whether spending more money to make a better military force would really make a better country. I would be the last to disparage the military art. It is an honorable and patriotic calling of the highest rank. But I can see no merit in any unnecessary expenditure of money to hire men to build fleets and carry muskets when international relations and agreements permit the turning of such resources into the making of good roads, the building of better homes, the promotion of education, and all the other arts of peace which minister to the advancement of human welfare. Happily, the position of our country is such among the other nations of the world that we have been and shall be warranted in proceeding in this direction.”

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

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Men, Money, War, World

“The mortal enemies of man are not his fellows of another continent or race; they are the aspects of the physical world which limit or challenge his control, the disease germs that attack him and his domesticated plants and animals, and the insects that carry many of these germs as well as working notable direct injury. This is not the age of man, however great his superiority in size and intelligence; it is literally the age of insects.”

W. C. Allee (1885–1955) American zoologist and ecologist

The Social Life of Animals (1938), Chapter VII: Some Human Implications.

Age, World, Disease, Intelligence

“Opponents seem to think the end of the world is nigh and that law and order will grind to a complete halt. Their strategy is based on attack, attack, attack.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

Additional remarks about the proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission, Address to the Editors' Forum, Suva, 27 July 2005

World, Law, Thinking

“If my theoretical studies have contained any subjective value judgment, then this has amounted at most to a preference for freedom and progress rather than state control of the economy and distribution of such scanty prosperity as may be available for distribution at a given moment. I have wanted to make it clear that this preference is a great common interest of all parties, both in the management of the world economy and in every individual nation. Such a position may be attacked, but it cannot be denominated as party-politics in the ordinary sense.”

Gustav Cassel (1866–1945) Swedish economist

Cassel (1941, 440); as cited in: Carlson, Benny, and Lars Jonung. "Knut Wicksell, Gustav Cassel, Eli Heckscher, Bertil Ohlin and Gunnar Myrdal on the role of the economist in public debate." Econ Journal Watch 3.3 (2006): 524-5.

World, Sense, Study, Freedom

“He (Mahmud) scattered the army of the Hindus in one attack and took Rai Jaipal prisoner. He carried him to the distant part of his kingdom of Ghazni and delivered him to an agent of the Slave Market (dalal-i-bazar). I heard that at the command of the king (Mahmud), the Brokers of the Market, (maqiman-i-bazar in the original) sold Jaipal as a slave for 80 Dinars and deposited the money realised by the sale in the Treasury.”

Jayapala (964–1001) Ruler of the Kabal Shabi

Hodivala, 192-93. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3

Money, Distant, Parting

“Celtic civilization was tribal, but by no means savage or uncultivated. People who regarded the theft of a harp from a bard as a crime second only to an attack on the tribal chieftain cannot be regarded as wanting in cultivated feeling.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Scottish Folklore and Opera (1992).

People, Feeling

“The FBI and the CIA, I really thought they had everything under control. I thought they knew what was going on with everybody. I thought they had a camera in the air in a satellite right now taking very accurate pictures of my prostate. I thought they had that kind of technology. I thought they knew everything about everybody, but it turns out they’re really no different than many other government bureaucracies, say, the Post Office or the Department of Motor Vehicles. Just, uh, you know, 50-60 year old men waiting for their pensions to kick in. Except for the three that let the attack [9/11] happen. They’ve been promoted.”

Marc Maron (1963) Comedian

Not Sold Out (2002)

Men, Waiting

“I have not done anything to merit being thrown out. I don't understand why I am being attacked and held personally responsible. I am more loyal to my mother-in-law than even to my mother.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

On being driven away by her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, as quoted in "Son's Widow Quits Gandhi Household" http://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/31/world/son-s-widow-quits-gandhi-household.html, The New York Times (31 March 1982) 1981-1990

Law, Understanding, Personality

“I have my disagreements with the alt-right, but let’s get a win for the right in America before hashing it all out. The current attitude on the right is to fight with your own side rather than to give leftists hell. Under that model of politics, men are losing due process rights, the suicide of whites is at a record high, and there are several Islamic terrorist attacks on American soil. Until the right wins for once, I have no interest in arguing with the alt-right or disavowing anyone. Once the right has some actual power, then it will be time to have an ideological civil war. Until then, nah.”

Mike Cernovich (1977) American writer

Is Mike Cernovich Part of the Alt-Right? http://www.dangerandplay.com/2016/08/31/is-mike-cernovich-part-of-the-alt-right/ (August 31, 2016)

Men, War, Hell, Suicide

“I am urging the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader to stop these bomb and grenade attacks, these acts of sabotage, and killings, of arson and damage to property.”

Sheikh Hasina (1947) Prime Minister of Bangladesh

“Ideas are inherently conservative. They yield not to the attack of other ideas but to the massive onslaught of circumstance with which they cannot contend.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Affluent Society

Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 2, Section VI, p. 26

Idea

“This was the might of France, the pride of France, the tactic of the world's first conscript army, and this column, Clausel's counter-attack, ignored cold mathematical logic. It was not defeated by the line.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, p. 253
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

World, Mathematics

“It requires courage to make a frontal attack on nature through the broad planes and the large lines and it is cowardly to do it by the facets and details. It is a battle.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

posthumous quotes, The Shop-Talk of Edgar Degas', (1961)

Courage, Nature

“We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq. [The events] swung American public opinion in our favor.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

"Report: Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks good for Israel" (16 April 2008) http://www.haaretz.com/news/report-netanyahu-says-9-11-terror-attacks-good-for-israel-1.244044 2000s, 2008

“The Duke of Devonshire issues a circular applying for subscriptions to oppose this Bill, and he charges us with the robbery of God. Why, does he not know—of course he knows—that the very foundations of his fortune are laid deep in sacrilege, fortunes built out of desecrated shrines and pillaged altars…I say that charges of this kind brought against a whole people…ought not to be brought by those whose family trees are laden with the fruits of sacrilege. I am not complaining that ancestors of theirs did it, but they are still in the enjoyment of the same property, and they are subscribing out of that property to leaflets which attack us and call us thieves. What is their story? Look at the whole story of the pillage of the Reformation. They robbed the Catholic Church, they robbed the monasteries, they robbed the altars, they robbed the almshouses, they robbed the poor, and they robbed the dead. Then they come here when we are trying to seek, at any rate to recover some part of this pillaged property for the poor for whom it was originally given, and they venture, with hands dripping with the fat of sacrilege, to accuse us of robbery of God.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1912/may/16/second-reading-fourth-days-debate in the House of Commons (12 May 1912) on the Bill to disestablish the Anglican church in Wales Chancellor of the Exchequer

God, People, Family, Tree

“Israel needs to take more active steps… Bury suicide bombers in potter's fields rather than deliver their bodies to relatives (who turn their funerals into frenzied demonstrations)…Permit no transportation of people or goods beyond basic necessities. Shut off utilities to the PA… Raze the PA's illegal offices in Jerusalem, its security infrastructure and villages from which attacks are launched.”

Daniel Pipes (1949) U.S. neoconservative columnist, author, counter-terrorism analyst, and scholar of Middle Eastern history

National Post (July 18, 2001).

People, Suicide

“This is the research we did online for the 9/11 attacks… we gave this briefing internally at the CIA, they said, 'how'd you know all this stuff?' because at the same time one of the emails had the date… 9/11 as the attack date that was given”

William Binney former U.S. intelligence official and cryptoanalyst; whistleblower

source: William Binney - 'The Government is Profiling You' - video lecture at MIT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB3KR8fWNh0

Time

“The dictator Powers of Europe are striding on from strength to strength and from stroke to stroke, and the parliamentary democracies are retreating abashed and confused. … Austria has been laid in thrall, and we do not know whether Czechoslovakia will not suffer a similar attack. … It is because we have lost these opportunities of standing firm, of having strong united forces and a good heart, and a resolute desire to defend the right and afterwards to do generously as the result of strength; it is because we have lost these successive opportunities which have presented themselves, that, when our resources are less and the dangers greater, we have been brought to this pass. I predict that the day will come when at some point or other on some issue or other you will have to make a stand, and I pray God that when that day comes we may not find that through an unwise policy we are left to make that stand alone.”

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

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/feb/22/foreign-affairs#S5CV0332P0_19380222_HOC_332 in the House of Commons (22 February 1938) after the resignation of the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden The 1930s

God, Democracy, Strong, Suffering

“Hippocrates also attacked the problem of doubling the cube. …Hippocrates did not, indeed, solve the problem, but he succeeded in reducing it to another, namely, the problem of finding two mean proportionals in continued proportion between two given straight lines, i. e. finding x, y such that a:x=x:y=y:b, where a, b are the two given straight lines. It is easy to see that, if a:x=x:y=y:b, then b/a = (x/a)3, and, as a particular case, if b=2a, x3=2a3, so that the side of the cube which is double of the cube of side a is found.”

Thomas Little Heath (1861–1940) British civil servant and academic

Achimedes (1920)

Problem

“Of all these offenses the one that is most widely, frequently, and vehemently denounced is undoubtedly imperialism—sometimes just Western, sometimes Eastern (that is, Soviet) and Western alike. But the way this term is used in the literature of Islamic fundamentalists often suggests that it may not carry quite the same meaning for them as for its Western critics. In many of these writings the term "imperialist" is given a distinctly religious significance, being used in association, and sometimes interchangeably, with "missionary," and denoting a form of attack that includes the Crusades as well as the modern colonial empires. One also sometimes gets the impression that the offense of imperialism is not—as for Western critics—the domination by one people over another but rather the allocation of roles in this relationship. What is truly evil and unacceptable is the domination of infidels over true believers. For true believers to rule misbelievers is proper and natural, since this provides for the maintenance of the holy law, and gives the misbelievers both the opportunity and the incentive to embrace the true faith. But for misbelievers to rule over true believers is blasphemous and unnatural, since it leads to the corruption of religion and morality in society, and to the flouting or even the abrogation of God's law. This may help us to understand the current troubles in such diverse places as Ethiopian Eritrea, Indian Kashmir, Chinese Sinkiang, and Yugoslav Kossovo, in all of which Muslim populations are ruled by non-Muslim governments. It may also explain why spokesmen for the new Muslim minorities in Western Europe demand for Islam a degree of legal protection which those countries no longer give to Christianity and have never given to Judaism. Nor, of course, did the governments of the countries of origin of these Muslim spokesmen ever accord such protection to religions other than their own. In their perception, there is no contradiction in these attitudes. The true faith, based on God's final revelation, must be protected from insult and abuse; other faiths, being either false or incomplete, have no right to any such protection.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)

God, People, Faith, Religion

“We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation"…In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don't think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic. You would also be led to think that the term "civilian casualty" had not even been in the Iraqi vocabulary until March 2003…the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once.That this—his pro-American moment—was the worst Moore could possibly say of Saddam's depravity is further suggested by some astonishing falsifications. Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible…Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer…In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more—the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally…Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country…And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war.”

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

2004-06-21
Unfairenheit 9/11
Slate
1091-2339
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2004/06/unfairenheit_911.html: On Michael Moore
2000s, 2004

Life, War, Children, Secret

“A dialogue of respect is the rock-bed of all societies. Attacking and excluding others, insulting other peoples and their faith and convictions — this is no way forward. The future lies in unity and respect, not division and stereotypes.”

Abdullah II of Jordan (1962) King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Address to the European Parliament (2015)

People, Faith, Way, Future

“"Let me guess: if I stand up, he's gonna see me immediately?" [stands up; tribesman attacks him] "Of course."”

TotalBiscuit (1984–2018) British game commentator

WTF Is…? series, Day One: Garry's Incident (October 1, 2013)

“Think, Amelia, think. You read all those books. What would Odysseus do? Dress up like a beggar, and then shoot everyone. No help there. What would Achilles do? Go sulk in his tent. Nope. Aeneas? Sacrifice a cow or something. Boy, these old heroes are really not useful as role models. Who were my other heroes? Margaret Thatcher? Attack Argentina. No time to go wobbly.”

John C. Wright (1961) American novelist and technical writer

Source: Titans of Chaos (2007), Chapter 10, “Love’s Proper Hue” Section 7 (p. 157)

Books, Boy, Thinking, Time

“This evening, my thoughts return to the first night I addressed you from this house. September 11, 2001. That morning, terrorists took nearly 3,000 lives in the worst attack on America since Pearl Harbor. I remember standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center three days later, surrounded by rescuers who had been working around the clock. I remember talking to brave souls who charged through smoke-filled corridors at the Pentagon and to husbands and wives whose loved ones became heroes aboard Flight 93. I remember Arlene Howard, who gave me her fallen son's police shield as a reminder of all that was lost. And I still carry his badge.”

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

2000s, 2009, Farewell speech to the nation (January 2009)

Love, World, Soul, Housing

“Paris was attacked not because of what the French do, as some Blame-The-West intellectuals claim, but because of what the French are: infidels who refuse to see the light of Islam. The hope is that just as the Prophet forced the Arab tribes to accept Islam in exchange for protection, the “infidel” nations will also decide that it is in their best interest to submit. Today, however, I see no sign the French tend toward submission. As always, the terrorists may end up like the man who, having won a great many tokens at the roulette table, is surprised when the casino tells him his winnings cannot be cashed.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"The jihadis’ master plan to break us" http://nypost.com/2015/11/15/the-jihadis-master-plan-to-break-us/ New York Post (November 15, 2015). New York Post

Hope, Light

“So are you saying that somebody went to all the trouble to make you a crypt a thousand years ago on the off chance that you might turn up one day, walk in, and have a convenient heart attack?”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy), Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr (2001), p. 231.

Chance, Heart

“Eventually the decision was reached to accept the armed chopper as an essential part of the air mobility concept but not to allow the Army to use the Mohawk as an attack aircraft, confining it to a reconnaissance role. Both were wise decisions. But prior to these decisions there were some hot and emotional sessions of the JCS. One concerned the armed Huey, which as then being used successfully in Vietnam to support ARVN operations, but which was considered by the Air Force as illegal poaching on their roles and missions. This was in the midsummer of 1964. General LeMay suddenly took his cigar out of his mouth and, gesticulating wildly, challenged General Johnson to an aerial duel. He screamed, "Johnson, you fly one of those damned Huey's and I'll fly an F-105, and we'll see who survives. I'll shoot you down and scatter your peashooter all over the goddamn ground." I was eager to defend my chief, both verbally and physically (LeMay would have made two Johnsons in body weight, if not in mental poundage) but Johnson motioned to me to keep quiet and responded quietly: "I'm not a flier, but I will be happy to get qualified and take you on- we can agree on a time and place later. But let's not waste the valuable time of our colleagues on such a trivial matter."”

Bruce Palmer Jr. (1913–2000) United States Army Chief of Staff

Source: The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam (1984), p. 27

Support, Decision, Time, Parting

“The expression "Making a mountain out of a molehill" simply means making a big deal out of something that is actually a small deal, and it is easy to see how this expression came about. Molehills are simply mounds of earth serving as condominiums for moles, and they have never caused anyone harm except for maybe a stubbed toe if you were walking around the wilderness without any shoes on. Mountains, however, are very large mounds of earth and are constantly causing problems. They are very tall, and when people try to climb them they often fall off, or get lost and die of starvation. Sometimes, two countries fight over who really owns a mountain, and thousands of people have to go to war and come home grumpy or wounded. And, of course, mountains serve as homes to mountain goats and mountain lions, who enjoy attacking helpless picnickers and eating sandwiches or children. So when someone is making a mountain out of a molehill, they are pretending that something is as horrible as a war or a ruined picnic when it is really only as horrible as a stubbed toe.”

Daniel Handler book The Austere Academy

The Austere Academy (2000)

War, Children, People, Shoe

“The attack on the Sri Lankans means we should brace ourselves for some tough times.”

Inzamam-ul-Haq

Statement to media Dawn News http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/cricket/attack-will-leave-pcb-facing-financial-ruin-inzamam-ts#

Time

“The Bible says God gave herb for the service of man and bread to strengthen man's heart. Did you know bread used to strengthen your heart? But keep in mind, you know, "the love of money, the root of all evil." They learned years ago, if they take out the vitamin E, the lecithin, and the omega-3 fatty acids (they take them out of the wheat; and make the bread with white flour), the bread lasts for months. But the people started dying of heart attacks and strokes and circulation problems. See, it's a simple formula: the whiter the bread, the quicker you're dead. Now it's not the white bread that's killing you. It's what's not in the bread that's killing you. See, God made bread to strengthen your heart. Remember the Bible talked about "our daily bread." But people who are making bread to sell, got tired of having half of it go bad on the shelf where they couldn't sell it. So they had to figure out a way to make their bread last longer to increase profits.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Garden of Eden

Love, Money, God, People

“In 1918 Hitler was in a military hospital blinded from a British poison gas attack. He was just a corporal, he had no family, a limited education, no friends, no connections, no political status, nothing. He decides that he will lead Germany in redressing the grievous wrongs that had been done to it after the First World War and straightening out some of the mistakes that were being made in German society. And fifteen years later he is Chancellor of Germany and he did what he said he was going to do. A wounded war veteran with nobody to help him, and he pulled it up just through his own willpower. That is an amazing story.”

William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) American white nationalist

The Fame of a Dead Man's deeds, 2001
2000s, 2001
Source: [Griffin, 2001, 68]

War, World, Education, Family

“We must not look too dangerous to neutrals. While this is probably less important for us than not looking too dangerous to friends and allies, it is still too important to be ignored. Here again, we must not look excessively destructive. It may be all right to promise the Soviets that if they attack us we will destroy every Soviet citizen in retaliation (though personally I think this far too destructive a proposal), but we should not threaten nonbelligerents with near annihilation because of our quarrel with the Russians. Many of the world's inhabitant perhaps two-thirds of them, do not feel it is their quarrel but feel it is their world. The more destructive we look, the less they like us and our program. To the extent that some in our midst talk and threaten potential world annihilation as a U. S. defense measure, we focus undeserved attention on ourselves as being dangerous and even irresponsible—appearing to be willing to risk uncounted hundreds of millions or billions of bystanders as to our selfish ambitions and desires. Neutrals and bystanders will inevitably suffer heavily in any thermonuclear War. But there is a difference between damage and annihilation.”

Herman Kahn (1922–1983) American futurist

The Magnum Opus; On Thermonuclear War

War, World, Feeling, Thinking

“Leiderman thought it was not enough that the government dropped charges. He wanted the criminal justice system to recognize Gonzalez’s innocence affirmatively. There is such a thing as a declaration of factual innocence, he explained to Gonzalez. A judge can grant it. It is exceedingly rare – so rare that many cops and lawyers go a career without seeing one. It means not just that prosecutors couldn’t make a case against you, but that you didn’t do the crime. The case remained on the docket of Ventura County Superior Court Judge Patricia Murphy, who had earlier ordered Gonzalez held without bail. Leiderman petitioned the judge, trying not to get his client’s hopes up. He laid out the case, pointing out the holes in West’s story and the numerous alibi witnesses. Prosecutors did not want Gonzalez declared innocent. They knew a jury wouldn’t convict him but said they couldn’t be positive of his innocence. [ ] Ventura County’s chief assistant district attorney, later explained their reasoning: The attack West described was “improbable, but it wasn’t physically impossible.””

Jay Leiderman (1971) lawyer

In January 2009, nearly a year after Gonzalez’s arrest, Leiderman called him excitedly: The judge had sided with them. Gonzalez was soon holding a certified copy of the judge’s order declaring him factually innocent.
As stated in, A Man Falsely Accused of Rape and Kidnap. http://jayleiderman.com/blog/jay-leiderman-quoted-part-5/

Justice, Hope

“To the right I see the forces which lead to dystopia. It is the big corporation which built the tower on top of the small hill which tells me: "Fly ABC Fortresses!" Airplanes have to be built like fortresses to avoid skyjacking attacks by the passengers.”

Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis (1914–1975) Greek architect

Source: Building Entopia - 1975, Chapter 23, The great dystopia of 1984, p. 298

Flying

“For these people to call themselves reds and describe attacks upon them as redbaiting is a form of McCarthyism in reverse. To rephrase Trotsky's juicy description of Stalinism, they are the syphilis of the radical youth movement today. And for syphilis there is only one treatment-an antibiotic, not an argument.”

Murray Bookchin (1921–2006) American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher

Listen, Marxist!

People, Youth

“My father came to visit and spent about half a day with me during a weekend. At the time, September 1942, he was in a highly classified planning program for the attack on Morocco at Casablanca. He was unable to tell me anything about the operation, except that this would be the last time he would see me before going overseas. He said that I was not to tell anybody that he was going overseas, but that he was leaving soon. Of course, in those days, you didn't have too many privileges as a fourth classman, and besides there were so damned many generals at West Point, and in the Army, that his appearance, as I recall, didn't cause any particular stir. At the time he was a major general and had recently been training in Indio, California.”

George S. Patton IV (1923–2004) U.S. Army general

Source: The Fighting Pattons (1997) by Brian M. Sobel, p. 30-31

Appearance, Time, Training

“Come on, Rahotep. How do you think Royal Envoy Nakht gets his information about events in the north, and in the war? The army has its intelligence, and the palace has its own, too. The days when an invasion or an attack took place and no one heard about it for months are long gone. This war’s all about speed and information, and you can be sure Nakht has a very efficient system. The problem is, each system is always trying to infiltrate the other. And there’s always the danger of spies.”

Nick Drake (poet) (1961) British writer

ibid
The Rahotep series, Book 3: Egypt: The Book of Chaos (2011)

War, Intelligence, Problem, Thinking

“The real damage from terrorist attacks doesn't come from the explosion. The real damage is done after the explosion, by the victims, who repeatedly and determinedly attack themselves, giving over reason in favor of terror. Every London cop who stops someone from taking a picture of a public building, every TSA agent who takes away your kid's toothpaste, every NSA spook who wiretaps your email, does the terrorist's job for him. Terrorism is about magnifying one mediagenic act of violence into one hundred billion acts of terrorized authoritarian idiocy.”

Cory Doctorow (1971) Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author

"BBC photographer prevented from shooting St Paul's because he might be 'al Qaeda operative'" BoingBoing (30 November 2009) http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/30/bbc-photographer-pre.html

“The Islamists smell weakness in the West and are attacking us on several fronts at once: one, through outright war; two, through immigration; three, through their propaganda disseminated through the liberal media and four, through the liberal courts. Only a devastating military blow against the hearts of Islamic terror coupled with an outright ban on Muslim immigration, laws making the dissemination of enemy propaganda illegal, and the uncoupling of the liberal ACLU can save the United States. I would also make the construction of mosques illegal in America and the speaking of English only in the streets of the United States the law.”

Michael Savage book The Savage Nation

The Savage Nation The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2006-11-27 Radio (Audio and text: http://mediamatters.org/video/2006/11/29/savage-to-save-the-united-states-lawmakers-shou/137410) 2006

War, Law, Heart

“When they laid down their arms, we murdered them. We lied to them. We cheated them out of their lands. We starved them into signing fraudulent agreements that we called treaties which we never kept. We turned them into beggars on a continent that gave life for as long as life can remember. And by any interpretation of history, however twisted, we did not do right. We were not lawful nor were we just in what we did. For them, we do not have to restore these people, we do not have to live up to some agreements, because it is given to us by virtue of our power to attack the rights of others, to take their property, to take their lives when they are trying to defend their land and liberty, and to make their virtues a crime and our own vices virtues.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

Speech for the Academy Awards protesting the treatment of American Indians, written by Brando, as it appeared in the New York Times (March 30, 1973)

Life, People, Law, History

“In chess, we say that the player with the initiative is obliged to attack, otherwise the initiative will be lost and the counterattack will likely be decisive.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

2010s, The Truth About Putin (2018)

Decision

“Gutenberg’s press flooded the market. In the early 1500s John Tetzel, the head pardoner for German territories, would sweep into a town with a collection of already printed indulgences, hawking them with a phrase usually translated as “When a coin a coffer rings / A soul for heaven springs.” The nakedly commercial aspects of indulgences, among other things, enraged Martin Luther, who in 1517 launched an attack on the Church in the form of his famous Ninety-five Theses. He first nailed the theses to a church door in Wittenberg, but copies were soon printed up and disseminated widely. Luther’s critique, along with the spread of Bibles translated into local languages, drove the Protestant Reformation, plunging the Church (and Europe) into crisis. The tool that looked like it would strengthen the social structure of the age instead upended it. From the vantage point of 1450, the new technology seemed to do nothing more than offer the existing society a faster and cheaper way to do what it was already doing. By 1550 it had become apparent that the volume of indulgences had debauched their value, creating “indulgence inflation”—further evidence that abundance can be harder for a society to deal with than scarcity. Similarly, the spread of Bibles wasn’t a case of more of the same, but rather of more is different—the number of Bibles produced increased the range of Bibles produced, with cheap Bibles translated into local languages undermining the interpretative monopoly of the clergy, since churchgoers could now hear what the Bible said in their own language, and literate citizens could read it for themselves, with no priest anywhere near. By the middle of the century, Luther’s Protestant Reformation had taken hold, and the Church’s role as the pan-European economic, cultural, intellectual, and religious force was ending.”

Clay Shirky (1964) American technology writer

Cognitive Surplus : Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (2010)

Age, Way, Soul, Spring

“My legal wife is to me dead; the only ecclesiastical authority I recognise pronounces me free; the attacks and threats of men do not disturb me. I am acting according to a clear conscience, and am doing hurt to no man. For my conduct, I will answer to my maker.”

William the Silent (1533–1584) stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht, leader of the Dutch Revolt

William talking about his personal life, as quoted in William the Silent (1897) by Frederic Harrison, p. 176

Men, Hurt, Dead

“Coition is a slight attack of apoplexy. For man gushes forth from man, and is separated by being torn apart with a kind of blow.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Freeman (1948), p. 150

“Retreat Hell! We're just attacking in another direction.”

Oliver P. Smith (1893–1977) United States Marine Corps general

Said during the Korean War, December 1950, U.S. Marine Corps History Division website http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/HD/Frequently_Requested/Quotes.htm.

Hell

“[On presidential candidates not condemning the controversial MoveOn. org ad in The New York Times. ] If you're not tough enough to repudiate a scurrilous, outrageous attack such as that, then I don't know how you're tough enough to be president of the United States.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

As quoted in The Boston Globe http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/09/16/sister_souljah_moments/ (16 September 2007) 2000s, 2007

Time

“I chose to bomb a federal building because such an action served more purposes than other options. Foremost, the bombing was a retaliatory strike; a counter attack, for the cumulative raids and subsequent violence and damage that federal agents had participated in over the preceding years (including, but not limited to, Waco.) From the formation of such units as the FBI's 'Hostage Rescue' and other assault teams amongst federal agencies during the '80s; culminating in the Waco incident, federal actions grew increasingly militaristic and violent, to the point where at Waco, our government - like the Chinese - was deploying tanks against its own citizens.”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

2000s, Why I Bombed the Murrah Federal Building (2001)

“Ahmad Shah greatly desired to subdue the Sikhs, and his army attacked and gained control of the Sikh's holy city of Amritsar, where he brutally massacred thousands of Sikh followers. Not only did he viciously demolish the sacred temples and buildings, but he ordered these holy places to be covered with animals blood as an insult and desecration of their religion.”

Ahmed Shah Durrani (1722–1772) founder of the Durrani Empire, considered founder of the state of Afghanistan

M. L. Runion (2017). The History of Afghanistan, 2nd Edition. Greenwood. pp. 69–71. ISBN 978-0-313-33798-7

Religion, Animals

“At Aix (Aix en Provence) I am not free; whenever I want to return to Paris, I always have to put up a fight, and, although your (his father) opposition may not be absolute, I am always deeply affected by the resistance that I encounter from you. I sincerely want my liberty unfettered.... it would give me great pleasure to work in the Midi, some aspects of which offer many resources to the painter; there I would be able to attack some of the problems that I wish to solve.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote in Cezanne's letter to his father in Aix; ca. 1871-73; as quoted in Cézanne, by Ambroise Vollard, Dover publications Inc. New York, 1984, pp. 33-34
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, 1860s - 1870s

Pleasure, Problem, Fight, Sincerity

“So the president is like, "Well, once upon a time it was Congress's job to decide whether or not we attacked countries, so let's let them decide." Which is funny, because, as we all know, if Congress were on fire, Congress could not pass the "Pour Water on Congress Act".”

Hank Green (1980) American vlogger

Syria in Five Minutes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exrqMPJ1Bts Youtube

Water, Time, Country

“South Africans cannot believe that a man who never went to school is the President and that is the reason why he must be attacked 24/7 … No one has ever said it is a miracle for this man to have become president and wrote a column about it.”

Jacob Zuma (1942) 4th President of South Africa

Speaking as patron of the Jacob Zuma Foundation at Dube House official residence, Morningside, South Africans cannot believe they have an uneducated president – Zuma http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/south-africans-cannot-believe-they-have-an-uneducated-president-zuma-20160115, News24, 15 January 2016

School

“Magisterium' and 'oblation' are church terms, they are terms of church organisation. These are administrative things. These are bureaucratic things. How can an attack on those be construed as an attack on God? These are human things which human beings have constructed in order to wield power. That's not a contentious thing to say. That is simply true. These are forms of political organisation and no more than that.”

Philip Pullman (1946) English author

Surefish interview (2002)

God

“They were outnumbered, they were surrounded, yet no one had panicked, not one battalion had been caught deployed in column, and not one square had been rattled by the horse-men's proximity. The Light had saved the Seventh Division, and now it was saving itself with a dazzling display of professional soldiering. Pure drill was defeating French verve, and Massena's attack, which had swept around the British right flank with overwhelming force, had been rendered utterly impotent.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, describing the actions of the British Light Division during the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, p. 319
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)

Men, Light, Horse

“As will so often be the case when a men has a pen in his hand. It is like a club or sledge-hammer, — in using which, either for defence or attack, a man can hardly measure the strength of the blows he gives.”

Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) English novelist (1815-1882)

Source: An Autobiography (1883), Ch. 11

Men

“You who are apprentices in the field of public administration share with me who am older the task of trying to understand the new conditions in our field. Within a single generation, two world wars and a major depression have engulfed mankind. Within the past few months, the successful trial of the atomic bomb has opened the minds of the thoughtful to new possibilities, threats and coercions, and the defeat of Germany and Japan has abruptly presented the problems of peacemaking and reconstruction to war- weary masses of people. They seek release from their tragedies, deprivations and tensions, often in ways that defeat efforts to understand and attack the problems that confront them. To make progress in such a time, we must recruit widely and work as a guild, young and old together, to achieve a co-operative and cumulative effort whether in academic or governmental posts.”

John M. Gaus (1894–1969) American political scientist

Source: Reflections on public administration, 1947, p. 1; Lead paragraph

War, People, World, Way

“You know what I want to become temporarily today: a painter? No. A simple and common designer. But a biting one. I would like to deride humanity, nothing less. And this with the simplest means, in black and white. At the same time - oh blasphemy - I would like to attack our Lord adequately.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote in a letter to his friend de:Hans Bloesch, 1898; as cited in Das Frühwerk 1883-1922 (The early works 1888-1922), Munich, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, 1979, p. 47
Klee originally aspired to become a satirist, not a painter.
1895 - 1902

Time

“The little desiccated coconut is under pressure and he is attacking anything he can get his hands on… (he is) still there araldited to the seat.”

Paul Keating (1944) Australian politician, 24th Prime Minister of Australia

In reference to Prime Minister John Howard. ABC Radio interview, March 5, 2007.

“Torture is not tolerated by this country on the battlefield or off. Anyone who tortures or abuses a detainee tarnishes the service of every honorable student and soldier in this room today. The President has said this, and I will say it again: those who commit torture in the name of the United States government will be prosecuted. In any discussion of Guantanamo, detainees and military commissions, I think that one final fact helps put things in perspective — and that is the fact that members of al Qaeda are not merely common criminals. Some critics around the world have argued that they are “just” criminals, that their crimes somehow do not amount to war crimes. But here are the facts: al Qaeda seeks to employ weapons of mass slaughter as a means of achieving political goals against both the civilian and military capacity of the United States, Europe, and our allies throughout the world. Its members continue to fight our Armed Forces on battlefields around the world, and they will continue to do so until we stop them. Al Qaeda has committed acts on a scale that transcends mere crime, as recognized by NATO immediately after the attacks of September 11th. Their crimes are therefore nothing less than war crimes. Given the magnitude of the atrocities al Qaeda has committed, there can be no comparison between the crimes of its members and that of common civilian criminals.”

Alberto Gonzales (1955) 80th United States Attorney General

Speech regarding Civil Liberties and the War on Terrorism (November 20, 2006)

War, World, Thinking, Help

“She would do well to read some histories of Buddhism and Jainism in this country to know that 1) Buddhism was flourishing all over the country when the Islamic invaders arrived on the scene; 2) both Buddhism and Jainism were being patronised by kings whom the Marxist label as Hindus; 3) Buddhist monks fled to Nepal and Tibet only after thousands of them were massacred, and their monasteries destroyed by the Islamic marauders; 4) Buddhism continued to flourish all over Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka till attacked by the armies of Islam in the fourteenth century; 5) Buddhism did not survive the Islamic assault because, unlike Brahmanism and Jainism, it was centred round monasteries and monks; 6) Jainism has continued to flourish till today all over north India, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat as it did in the pre-Islamic period, in spite of prolonged Islamic persecution; and 7) there is evidence of a large number of Jain temples being destroyed in the Muslim invasions of southern Bihar and Jharkhand as well as of western and northern Bengal, during the thirteenth and subsequent centuries.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

History, Reading, Country

“Both logically and historically the first point of attack is arbitrary government, and the first liberty to be secured is the right to be dealt with in accordance with law. A man who has no legal rights against another, but stands entirely at his disposal, to be treated according to his caprice, is a slave to that other.”

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864–1929) British sociologist

Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter II, The Elements of Liberalism, p. 16.

Law

“Where are those proud people who will not allow the tomb of Ali to be a target for the bullets of this armed infidel called America? Where are the guardians of (Imam) Hosein's honor, who will prevent the Najaf Seminary and the Iraqi Shiites from becoming targets for the horrible attacks of the infidel bullets? Now the infidels are attacking the most holy cities and countries of Islam.”

Abdollah Javadi-Amoli (1933) Iranian politician

Excerpts from a Friday Sermon, Qom, Iran http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=227 August 2004. Holy cities

People, Country

“I was called a formalist, and in East Germany that meant you could be denied a chance to exhibit. So I knew I had to leave [to West-Germany], not because I was worried about the controversy but because I knew the controversy was about a bad picture. It wasn't good enough to be controversial. I was getting all the wrong reactions. Friends said the work was wonderful, and the attacks made it seem more important than it was. I had started to earn money with the murals. I earned enough to get a car. That was a big deal. So it was not easy to give up. But I knew I had to leave.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

Money, Cars, Chance

“When Kuwait was attacked by Saddam Hussein, all the wealthy Kuwaitis ran to Paris. They didn't just rent suites—they took up whole buildings, entire hotels. They lived like kings while their country was occupied. Who did they turn to for help? Who else? Uncle Sucker. That's us.”

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

Source: 2010s, 2015, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (2015), p. 34

Help, Country

“I think when people talk about civil liberties, they sometimes forget that action taken to protect the citizen against physical violence and physical attack is a blow in favour and not a blow against civil liberties.”

John Howard (1939) 25th Prime Minister of Australia

Terrorism Summit (Friday, 5 August 2005)

People, Thinking, Forgetting

“Repression, Sir is a habit that grows. I am told it is like making love-it is always easier the second time! The first time there may be pangs of conscience, a sense of guilt. But once embarked on this course with constant repetition you get more and more brazen in the attack. All you have to do is to dissolve organizations and societies and banish and detain the key political workers in these societies. Then miraculously everything is tranquil on the surface. Then an intimidated press and the government-controlled radio together can regularly sing your praises, and slowly and steadily the people are made to forget the evil things that have already been done, or if these things are referred to again they're conveniently distorted and distorted with impunity, because there will be no opposition to contradict.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

Source: Lee Kuan Yew as an opposition PAP member speaking to David Marshall, Singapore Legislative Assembly, Debates, 4 October, 1956

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/26/world/asia/29leekuanyew-quotes.html

Love, People, Making love, Sense

“The U. S. has enough problems without publicity seekers going out and openly mocking religion in order to provoke attacks and death. BE SMART.”

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

Twitter - About the Muhammad Art Contest in Texas at 1st May, 2015 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/595406508378173440 (4 May 2015) 2010s, 2015

Death, Religion, Problem

“Alexander Gardner who later became the Colonel of Artillery in the service of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, had travelled extensively in Central Asia from 1819 to 1823 C. E. He saw a lot of slave-catching in Kafiristan, a province of Afghanistan, which was largely inhabited by infields at that time. He found that the area had been reduced to “the lowest state of poverty and wretchedness” as a result of raids by the Muslim king of Kunduz for securing slaves and supplying them to the slave markets in Balkh and Bukhara. He writes:
“All this misery was caused by the oppression of the Kunduz chief, who not content with plundering his wretched subjects, made an annual raid into the country south of Oxus, and by chappaos (night attacks) carried off all the inhabitants on whom his troops could lay their hands. These, after the best had been selected by the chief and his courtiers, were publicly sold in the bazaars of Turkestan. The principal providers of this species of merchandise were the Khan of Khiva, the king of Bokhara (the great hero of the Mohammedan faith), and the robber beg of Kunduz.
“In the regular slave markets, or in transactions between dealers, it is the custom to pay for slaves in money; the usual medium being either Bokharan gold tillahs (in value about 5 or 51/2 Company rupees each), or in gold bars or gold grain. In Yarkand, or on the Chinese frontier, the medium is the silver khurup with the Chinese stamp, the value of which varies from 150 to 200 rupees each. The price of a male slave varies according to circumstances from 5 to 500 rupees. The price of the females also necessarily varies much, 2 tillahs to 10,000 rupees. Even the double the latter sum has been known to have been given.
“However, a vast deal of business is also done by barter, of which we had proof at the holy shrine of Pir-i-Nimcha, where we exchanged two slaves for a few lambs’ skins! Sanctity and slave dealing may be considered somewhat akin in the Turkestan region, and the more holy the person the more extensive are generally his transactions in flesh and blood.””

Alexander Gardner (soldier)

Alexander Gardner subsequently found a Muslim fruit merchant at Multan “who was proved by his own ledger to have exchanged a female slave girl for three ponies and seven long-haired, red-eyed cats, all of which he disposed of, no doubt to advantage, to the English gentlemen at this station.”
Memoirs of Alexander Gardner, edited by Major Hugh Pearce, first published in 1898, reprint published from Patiala in 1970, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1

Money, Faith, Travel, Girl

Quotes about attack page 13

Quotes about attack
page 13