Quotes about battle
page 10

“The exploits of your leaders in many a historic field of battle; the progress of your Revolution; the rise and career of the great Atatürk, his revitalization of your nation by his great statesmanship, courage and foresight all these stirring events are well-known to the people of Pakistan.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Reply to the speech made by the first Turkish Ambassador to Pakistan at the time of presenting Credentials to the Quaid-i-Azam (4 March 1948)

People, Courage

“I don't like the definition 'war correspondent'. It is history, not journalism, that has condemned the Middle East to war. I think 'war correspondent' smells a bit, reeks of false romanticism: it has too much of the whiff of Victorian reporters who would view battles from hilltops in the company of ladies, immune to suffering, only occasionally glancing towards the distant pop-pop of cannon fire.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

Preface (page XXI)
The Great War for Civilization (2005)

War, History, Thinking, Suffering

“All we know is that, sometimes, in our battles with the Russians, we had to remove the mounds of enemy corpses from before our trenches, in order to get a clear field of fire against fresh assaulting waves.”

Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and president of Germany

The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War (2013) by Peter Hart, p. 242
Undated

“We soon put the enemy to the rout, and I had the pleasure to see them run in worse disorder than they did at the battle of Monniouth. Our troops behaved with great spirit; and the brigade of militia, under the command of General Lovell, advanced with great resolution and in good order, and stood the fire of the enemy with great firmness. Lieutenant-Colonel Livingston, Colonel Jackson, and Colonel Henry B. Livingston, did themselves great honor in the transactions of the day; but it's not in my power to do justice to Colonel Laurens, who acted both the General and the partisan. His command of regular troops was small, but he did every thing possible to be done by their numbers. He had two most excellent officers with him, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry and Major Talbot.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (August 1778)

Pleasure, Justice

“Even the British Arthur becomes an Englishman, a Germanic hero, brave, daring and open-handed. We are in a world of feasts and vaunting speeches, flytings and lusty battles, fierce deeds and bloody humour, with the Fiend, the Adversary of Man, always round the next corner.”

Layamon (1200) English poet

Gwyn Jones, in Wace and Layamon (trans. Eugene Mason) Arthurian Chronicles (London: Dent, [1912] 1976) p. xi.
Criticism

World

“There is something impressive and mystical about the artillery battles... I still do not think differently about the war... It simply seems to me feeble and lifeless to consider it vulgar and dumb. I dream of a new Europe, I.... see in this war the healing, if also gruesome, path to our goals; it will purify Europe, and make it ready… Europe is doing the same things to her body France did to hers during the Revolution.... the war is not turning me into a realist – on the contrary: I feel so strongly the meaning which hovers behind the battles, behind every bullet, so that the realism, the materialism disappears completely. Battles, wounds, motions, all appear so mystical, unreal..”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

In a letter to his wife Maria, (12 September 1914); in Letters from the war, p. 4. (in a slightly modified version 'In the Purgatory of War' (Im Fegefever des Krieges), Berlin newspaper Vossische Zeitung, 15 December 1914
1911 - 1914

War, Dreams, Feeling, Thinking

“The battle to end sexual assault on college campuses is one of the most important civil rights movements of our time. It is a movement for change.”

Gloria Allred (1941) American civil rights lawyer

December 6, 2014, Gloria Allred: The Battle Over Sexual Assault is the ‘Civil Rights Movement of Our Time’, May 15, 2014, Time magazine, Gloria Allred http://time.com/100055/campus-sexual-assault-gloria-allred/,

Change, Time

“My young friends, you are soldiers in the battle of freedom-freedom from want, fear, ignorance, frustration and helplessness. By a dint of hard work for the country, rendered in a spirit of selfless service, may you march ahead with hope and courage.”

Bidhan Chandra Roy (1882–1962) Former Chief Minister of West Bengal, India

Fear, Hope, Courage, Freedom

“Upon reaching a place of safety, the Indians held a council. They had been defeated in their long expected great battle. The "long knives" were pressing on. Cornstalk enquired, what should be done. No one spoke. After a solemn pause, Cornstalk arose. "We must fight, or we are undone. Let us kill our women and children, and go and fight till we die." He sat down. After a long pause, he rose again and striking his tomahawk into the council post, said — "Then I'll go and make peace."”

Cornstalk (1720–1777) Native American in the American Revolution

Rev. William Henry Foote, in Sketches of Virginia: Historical and Biographical (1856), Ch. 12 : Cornstalk — and the Battle at Point Pleasant

Women, Children, Peace, Fight

“I cannot believe that the gentry of England will be made mere drumheads to be sounded upon by a Prime Minister to give forth unmeaning and empty sounds, and to have no articulate voice of their own. No! You are the gentry of England who represent the counties. You are the aristocracy of England. Your fathers led our fathers: you may lead us if you will go the right way. But, although you have retained your influence with this country longer than any other aristocracy, it has not been by opposing popular opinion, or by setting yourselves against the spirit of the age. In other days, when the battle and the hunting-fields were the tests of manly vigour, why, your fathers were first and foremost there. The aristocracy of England were not like the noblesse of France, the mere minions of a court; nor were they like the hidalgoes of Madrid, who dwindled into pigmies. You have been Englishmen. You have not shown a want of courage and firmness when any call has been made upon you. This is a new era. It is the age of improvement, it is the age of social advancement, not the age for war or for feudal sports. You live in a mercantile age, when the whole wealth of the world is poured into your lap. You cannot have the advantages of commercial rents and feudal privileges; but you may be what you always have been, if you will identify yourselves with the spirit of the age. The English people look to the gentry and aristocracy of their country as their leaders. I, who am not one of you, have no hesitation in telling you, that there is a deep-rooted, an hereditary prejudice, if I may so call it, in your favour in this country. But you never got it, and you will not keep it, by obstructing the spirit of the age.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in the House of Commons http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/mar/13/effects-of-corn-laws-on-agriculturists (13 March 1845). 1840s

War, People, Age, World

“…. most of our textbooks and commentaries on leadership and the mastery of the moral problem in battle are written by senior officers who are either wholly lacking in combat experience or have been for long periods so far removed from the reality of small arms action that they have come to forget what were once their most vital convictions and impressions.”

S.L.A. Marshall (1900–1977) United States Army general and Military historian

Author's note. p. 9-10.
Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command (1947)

Problem, Reality, Forgetting

“When certain hereditary tendencies are almost indelibly ingrained, environment will have a hard battle to effect a change in the child; but that a change can be wrought by the surroundings we all know. The particular subject may at first be stubborn against these influences, but repeated application of the same modifying forces in succeeding generations will at last accomplish the desired object in the child as it does in the plant.”

Luther Burbank (1849–1926) American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science

p, 125
The Training of the Human Plant (1907)

Change

“The statistics given me by Sir Auckland Geddes are most disquieting. They show that the physique of the people of this country is far from what it should be, particularly in the agricultural districts where the inhabitants should be the strongest. That is due to low wages, malnutrition and housing. It will have to be put right after the war. I have always stood during the whole of my life for the under-dog. I have not changed, and am going still to fight his battle.”

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

Quoted in Lord Riddell's diary entry (13/14 August 1918), J. M. McEwen (ed.), The Riddell Diaries 1908-1923 (London: The Athlone Press, 1986), p. 233
Prime Minister

Life, War, People, Dogs

“I actually adore that kind of hate mail, because if all you have to fight me with is prejudice then I have already won the battle, and eventually I'm gonna win this war. I wrote about hate mail on my website, and posted all that I had received, along with the names and e-mail addresses of the guilty…(this) actually prompted an incredible number of the haters to recant and apologize.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, RACISM AND CIVIL RIGHTS

Hate, War, Fight

“Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

This is cited to Patton in Patton's Principles : A Handbook for Managers Who Mean It! (1982) by Porter B. Williamson as well as Leadership (1990) by William Safire and Leonard Safir, p. 47, but is also cited to Erwin Rommel‎ from his Infanterie Greift An [Infantry Attacks] (1937) in World War II : The Definitive Visual History (2009) by Richard Holmes, p. 128, and Timelines of History (2011) by DK Publishing, p. 392
Disputed

Fight

“When I was a child the boys of the town never came near me except to make fun of me. I was almost always alone. Sometimes, finding me by chance among them, they hurled themselves against me, and not only with words. One day – and while he told me this his great eyes shone with an inner light - … they started to throw stones at me with more violence than usual, with the evilness which is found among children and the weak. I lost patience, and grabbing stones I too started to defend myself with such energy that my attackers were put to flight. Mario, I succeeded in beating them: I terrified them to such an extent that from that day they respected me and no longer annoyed me. I ran to my mother … and told her of my first victorious battle: she kissed me tenderly and it was the best prize that I could have wanted.”

Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) Italian writer, politician, theorist, sociologist and linguist

Gramsci cited in Garuglieri's Garuglieri, 'Ricordo di Gramsci.' Societa, 691-701., 1946, p. 700.

Children, Boy, Kiss, Light

“I caught glimpses of white-clad figures striding purposefully to and fro, heard men's voices calling each other in tones of authority and urgency, as if life had suddenly become more serious, as if battle were in prospect.”

L. P. Hartley book The Go-Between

The Go-Between (1953)

Life, Men

“Narrated 'Ali: When it was the day of the battle of Al-Ahzab (i. e. the clans), Allah's Apostle said, "O Allah! Fill their (i. e. the infidels') houses and graves with fire as they busied us so much that we did not perform the prayer (i. e. 'Asr) till the sun set."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

[4, 52, 182]
Sunni Hadith

Business, Sun, Housing

“If the world is an aggregate of relatively independent regions, then any assumption of universal laws is false and a demand for universal norms tyrannical: only brute force (or seductive deception) can then bend the different moralities so that they fit the prescriptions of a single ethical system. And indeed, the idea of universal laws of nature and society arose in connection with a life-and-death battle: the battle that gave Zeus the power over the Titans and all other gods and thus turned his laws into the laws of the universe.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Farewell to Reason

pg 99, italics are feyerabends
Farewell to Reason (1987)

Life, Death, God, World

“The peculiar policy of the government in employing so weak and vacillating a person as General Miles to look after the uneasy Indians, has resulted in a terrible loss of blood to our soldiers, and a battle which, at its best, is a disgrace to the war department. There has been plenty of time for prompt and decisive measures, the employment of which would have prevented this disaster.
The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

Saturday Pioneer (3 January 1891)
The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (1890 and 1891)

War, Decision, Loss, Time

“So in the spring of 1970, in a nihilistic fog, I prayed that I'd be relieved of the anger and the animosity that ate at my soul. I did not want to hate any more, and I had to stop before it totally consumed me. I had to make a fundamental choice. Do I believe in the principles of this country or not? After such angst, I concluded that I did. But the battle between passion and reason would continue, although abated, still intense.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Hate, Soul, Spring, Passion

“Mankind has conceived history as a series of battles; hitherto it has considered fighting as the main thing in life.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

Life, History, Fight

“When … some intimation of the eternal significance of my time moves through the heart of my self, it must still battle a positivistic turn of mind and mean-spirited secularism that denies the existence of the holy.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 145

Time, Heart

“War loses a great deal of its romance after a soldier has seen his first battle. I have a more vivid recollection of the first than the last one I was in. It is a classical maxim that it is sweet and becoming to die for one's country; but whoever has seen the horrors of a battlefield feels that it is far sweeter to live for it.”

John S. Mosby (1833–1916) Confederate Army officer

War Loses Its Romance (1887), as quoted at the Veterans Memorial at the Lackawanna County Courthouse in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

War, Feeling, Country

“The despot’s heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple-door,
Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle-queen of yore,
Maryland, my Maryland!”

James Ryder Randall (1839–1908) American journalist

“The panting breathless haste and vehemence of a man struggling in the thick of battle for life and salvation; this is the mood he is in!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Life, Mood

“If you are slain in battle, you should be resolved to have your corpse facing the enemy.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Hagakure (c. 1716)

“All the Hellenistic States had thus been completely subjected to the protectorate of Rome, and the whole empire of Alexander the Great had fallen to the Roman commonwealth just as if the city had inherited it from his heirs. From all sides kings and ambassadors flocked to Rome to congratulate her; they showed that fawning is never more abject than when kings are in the antechamber…w:Polybius dates from the battle of Pydna the full establishment of the universal empire of Rome. It was in fact the last battle in which a civilized state confronted Rome in the field on a footing of equality with her as a great power; all subsequent struggles were rebellions or wars with peoples beyond the pale of the Romano-Greek civilization -- with barbarians, as they were called. The whole civilized world thenceforth recognized in the Roman senate the supreme tribunal, whose commissions decided in the last resort between kings and nations; and to acquire its language and manners foreign princes and youths of quality resided in Rome. A clear and earnest attempt to get rid of this dominion was in reality made only once -- by the great Mithradates of Pontus. The battle of pydna, moreover, marks the last occasion on which the senate still adhered to the state-maxim that that they should, if possible, hold no possessions and maintain no garrisons beyond the Italian seas, but should keep the numerous states dependent on them in order by a mere political supremacy. The aim aim of their policy was that these states should neither decline into utter weakness and anarchy, as had nevertheless happened in Greece nor emerge out of their half-free position into complete independence, as Macedonia had attempted to do without success. No state was to be allowed to utterly perish, but no one was to be permitted to stand on its own resources… Indications of a change of system, and of an increasing disinclination on the part of Rome to tolerate by its side intermediate states even in such independence as was possible for them, were clearly given in the destruction of the Macedonian monarchy after the battle of Pydna, the more and more frequent and more unavoidable the intervention in the internal affairs of the petty Greek states through their misgovernment, and their political and social anarchy, the disarming of Macedonia, where the Northern forntier at any rate urgently required a defence different from that of mere posts; and, lastly, the introduction of the payment of land-tax to Rome from Macedonia and Illyria, were so many symptoms of the approaching conversion of the client states into subjects of Rome.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

The Changing of the Relationship between Rome and Her Client-States
The History Of Rome, Volume 2. Chapter 10. "The Third Macedonian War" Translated by W.P.Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 2

War, People, Youth, World

“Clerks spoke with the sure, clear voice of an original filmmaker. In Mallrats the voice is muffled, and we sense instead advice from the tired, the establishment, the timid and other familiar Hollywood executive types. The year that Clerks played at the Cannes Film Festival, I was the chairman of a panel discussion of independent filmmakers. Most of them talked about their battles to stay free from Hollywood's playsafe strategies. But Kevin Smith cheerfully said he'd be happy to do whatever the studios wanted, if they'd pay for his films. At the time, I thought he was joking.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mallrats-1995 of Mallrats (20 October 1995) Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Happiness, Sense, Time

“Even a very general knowledge of Indian history already shows that any instances of Hindu persecution of Buddhism could never have been more than marginal. After fully seventeen centuries of Buddhism's existence, from the 6 th century BC to the late 12 th century AD, most of it under the rule of Hindu kings, we find Buddhist establishments flourishing all over India. Under king Pushyamitra Shunga, often falsely labelled as a persecutor of Buddhism, important Buddhist centres such as the Sanchi stupa were built. As late as the early 12 th century, the Buddhist monastery Dharmachakrajina Vihara at Sarnath was built under the patronage of queen Kumaradevi, wife of Govindachandra, the Hindu king of Kanauj in whose reign the contentious Rama temple in Ayodhya was built. This may be contrasted with the ruined state of Buddhism in countries like Afghanistan or Uzbekistan after one thousand or even one hundred years of Muslim rule. Indeed, the Muslim chroniclers themselves have described in gleeful detail how they destroyed Buddhism root and branch in the entire Gangetic plain in just a few years after Mohammed Ghori's victory in the second battle of Tarain in 1192. The famous university of Nalanda with its fabulous library burned for weeks. Its inmates were put to the sword except for those who managed to flee. The latter spread the word to other Indian regions where Buddhist monks packed up and left in anticipation of further Muslim conquests. It is apparent that this way, some abandoned Buddhist establishments were taken over by Hindus; but that is an entirely different matter from the forcible occupation or destruction of Buddhist institutions by the foreign invaders.”

Pushyamitra Shunga King of Sunga Dynasty

Koenraad Elst: Religious Cleansing of Hindus, 2004, Agni conference in The Hague, and in: K. Elst The Problem with Secularism, 2007

Way, History, Knowledge, Universe

“While we are laid on the battle plain,
Drenched to the skin by the midnight rain,
Pleasant dreams may thy slumber crown,
As thou sinkest to rest amid silk and down :
But shame beside thy pillow stand!
A German maid shall kiss thee not,
A German song rejoice thee not,
And German wine shall warm thee not!
He who has strength to wield a brand,
Let him draw it now for his father-land!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The London Literary Gazette (3rd January 1835) Versions from the German (First Series.) - 'The Gathering' — Koerner.
Translations, From the German

Dreams, Kiss, Wine, Drawing

“Beginning from today, we shal shift over to the partisan tactic. Three battle companies will move out tonight, with two tasks: reconnaissance and obtaining arms. Do you remember, short-range weapons are of no use to us. We use such weapons only rarely. What we need urgently: grenades, rifles, machine guns and explosives.”

Mordechai Anielewicz (1919–1943) Leader of the Jewish Combat Organization

“We tend to think of [Hitler] as an idiot because the central tenet of his ideology was idiotic – and idiotic, of course, it transparently is. Anti-Semitism is a world view through a pinhole: as scientists say about a bad theory, it is not even wrong. Nietzsche tried to tell Wagner that it was beneath contempt. Sartre was right for once when he said that through anti-Semitism any halfwit could become a member of an elite. But, as the case of Wagner proves, a man can have this poisonous bee in his bonnet and still be a creative genius. Hitler was a destructive genius, whose evil gifts not only beggar description but invite denial, because we find it more comfortable to believe that their consequences were produced by historical forces than to believe that he was a historical force. Or perhaps we just lack the vocabulary. Not many of us, in a secular age, are willing to concede that, in the form of Hitler, Satan visited the Earth, recruited an army of sinners, and fought and won a battle against God. We would rather talk the language of pseudoscience, which at least seems to bring such events to order. But all such language can do is shift the focus of attention down to the broad mass of the German people, which is what Goldhagen has done, in a way that, at least in part, lets Hitler off the hook – and unintentionally reinforces his central belief that it was the destiny of the Jewish race to be expelled from the Volk as an inimical presence.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Ibid.
Essays and reviews, As Of This Writing (2003)

God, People, Age, World

“Politics can be a battle of ideas, not insults. It can be about solutions. It can be about making a difference. It can be about always striving to do better. That’s what it can be and what it should be. This is the system our Founders envisioned. It’s messy. It’s complicated. It’s infuriating at times. And it’s a beautiful thing too.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

College Republican National Committee, "Paul Ryan's Unshakeable Optimism in the American Dream" http://www.crnc.org/paul-ryans-unshakeable-optimism-america/ 15 April 2016

Beauty, Idea, Time

“It is justice, not love, that will one day give life to the children of the future. The battle for justice is the one thing which gives human life rational meaning.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Örn Úlfar
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Three: The House of the Poet

Love, Life, Children, Justice

“Man, supposing you and I, escaping this battle,
would be able to live on forever, ageless, immortal,
so neither would I myself go on fighting in the foremost,
nor would I urge you into the fighting where men win glory.
But now, seeing that the spirits of death stand close about us
in their thousands, no man can turn aside or escape them,
let us go on and win glory for ourselves, or yield it to others.”

Homér Iliad

XII. 322–328 (tr. R. Lattimore); Sarpedon to Glaukos.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Death, Men, Fight

“The division between those who try to learn about the world by manipulating it and those who can only observe it had led, in natural science, to a struggle for legitimacy. The experimentalists look down on the observers as merely telling uncheckable just-so stories, while the observers scorn the experimentalists for their cheap victories over excessively simple phenomena. In biology the two camps are now generally segregated in separate academic departments where they can go about their business unhassled by their unbelievers. But the battle is unequal because the observers' consciousness of what it is to do "real" science has been formed in a world dominated by the manipulators of nature. The observers then pretend to an exactness that they cannot achieve and they attempt to objectify a part of nature that is completely accessible only with the air of subjective tools.”

Richard C. Lewontin (1929) American evolutionary biologist

a reply to critical comments on his article "Sex, Lies and Social Science" in New York Review of Books (4/20/95)].
Sex, Lies, and Social Science (1995)

World, Business, Nature, Learning

“The Democrats are giving aid and comfort to the enemy for no purpose other than giving aid and comfort to the enemy. There is no plausible explanation for the Democrats' behavior other than that they long to see U. S. troops shot, humiliated, and driven from the field of battle. They fill the airwaves with treason, but when called to vote on withdrawing troops, disavow their own public statements. These people are not only traitors, they are gutless traitors.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

New Idea for Abortion Party: Aid the Enemy (23 November 2005).
2005

People, Behavior

“Again to the battle, Achaians!
Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance!
Our land, the first garden of Liberty's tree,
It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free.”

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) British writer

Song of the Greeks
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Tree, Heart

“You can't make war against terror. Terror is a technique of battle. It's a tactic that has been employed since time immemorial. You can conduct clandestine action against terrorists, and that must be done.”

John le Carré (1931) British novelist and spy

Radio interview (November 2008)

War, Time

“We go to battle against the plutocratic and reactionary democracies of the west… This gigantic struggle is nothing other than a phase in the logical development of our revolution; it is the struggle of peoples that are poor but rich in workers against the exploiters who hold on ferociously to the monopoly off all the riches and all the gold of the earth…”

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

“Declaration of War on France and England,” Mussolini Speech on June 10, 1940
1940s

People, Democracy

“As the night passed, Rifle updated me on the readiness of our forces, the locations of our aircraft carrier battle groups, and the "Global power" timelines for missions by B-2 stealth bombers flying from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. I had received an intelligence alert that as many as thirty additional terrorist strikes were possible worldwide. But there had been no more attacks… so far. Maybe this was because we'd buttoned up, sealing our vulnerabilities by going to Threat Con Delta. By now, CNN was running tape of President Bush flying back to Andrews and landing in Marine One on the White House lawn. The immediate crisis was over: the President was back in the Oval Office, the Secretary of Defense was in the wounded Pentagon. America was putting on her "game face."”

Tommy Franks (1945) United States Army general

I was proud of my country.
Source: American Soldier (2004), p. 247

Game, Intelligence, Housing, Flying

“Patrick Harper was an Ulsterman from Donegal and had been driven into the ranks of Britain's army by hunger and poverty. He was a huge man, four inches taller than Sharpe who was himself six feet tall. In battle Harper was an awesome figure, yet in truth he was a kind, humorous and easygoing man whose benevolence disguised his life's central contradiction, which was that he had no love for the king for whom he fought and for the country whose flag he defended, yet there were few better soldiers in all King George's army, and none who was more loyal to his friends.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, p. 19
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)

Love, Life, Hunger, Truth

“Just because Charlie and I can clearly see dramatic growth ahead for an industry does not mean we can judge what its profit margins and returns on capital will be as a host of competitors battle for supremacy. At Berkshire we will stick with businesses whose profit picture for decades to come seems reasonably predictable. Even then, we will make plenty of mistakes.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

1994 Chairman's Letter http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1994.html Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)

Business

“We are truly in a battle for our very lives not just in the sense that they will kill us if they can, but in the sense that life itself is being challenged, that it's life versus death, you either love life or you love death, creation versus destruction, love versus hatred, that's what this is about. And so, when we see the Islamic State (ISIS), we see not only that they embody Islam as I have explained here in this, that's all in the Quran what they do, but also that they embody what may be, the foremost evil force that the world has ever seen.”

Robert Spencer (1962) American author and blogger

ACT for America chapter in Mission Viejo, California https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw9lG83lr0s#t=24m07s (9 March 2015)

Love, Life, Death, World

“As I said, in the Fifties I had the 'angst' (= Dutch for 'fear') to survive materialistically. In the city Paris it was a battle. I painted with a knife and called the results 'human landscapes', abstract landscapes with human faces here and there. Today I can do without fight or struggle; every brushstroke now is ready, goes by itself: la peinture depouillé you could say. I discovered that in Picasso's late paintings. You look very closely but there is nothing anymore. He painted here and there a little bit; it is not finished, but once you step back you see a fantastic image, life by itself. I'm not fighting anymore; I'm floating, surfing on the wind.”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

Source: Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990), p. 95 'Quotes', K. Appel (1989)

Life, Fear, Fight, Painting

“Few artists have ever battled so manfully with management or so unheitatingly sassed the press. He was afraid of nobody because his heart was pure.”

William Kapell (1922–1953) American classical pianist

Virgil Thompson, " On William Kapell http://www.williamkapell.com/articles/virgilthompson.html", New York Herald-Tribune (October, 1953). About

Heart

“Under the deeply moving impression of France's capitulation I congratulate you and all the German armed forces on the God-given prodigious victory with the words of Kaiser Wilhelm the Great of the year 1870: "What a turn of events through God's dispensation!" All German hearts are filled with the chorale of Leuthen, which the victors of [the Battle of] Leuthen, the soldiers of the Great King sang [in 1757]: Now thank we all our God!”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Telegram to Hitler (19 June 1940), quoted in John C. G. Röhl, Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile 1900-1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 1261
1940s

God, Victory, Heart

“And fighting the battle of life is fighting against fearful odds, too. There are giants and dragons in this nineteenth century, and the golden casket that they guard is not so easy to win as it appears in the story-books.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Life, Books, Fear, Appearance

“Muslim power in India suffered a serious setback after Iltutmish. Balban had to battle against a revival of Hindu power. The Katehar Rajputs of what came to be known as Rohilkhand in later history, had so far refused to submit to Islamic imperialism. Balban led an expedition across the Ganges in 1254 AD. According to Badauni, “In two days after leaving Delhi, he arrived in the midst of the territory of Katihar and put to death every male, even those of eight years of age, and bound the women.””

`Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni book Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh

But in spite of such wanton cruelty, Muslim power continued to decline till the Khaljis revived it after 1290 AD.
`Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni, quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. ISBN 9788185990231 Ch. 6
Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh

Death, Women, Age, History

“Those who have never fought suppose that the deserter who flies the field is consumed by shame. He is not, or he would not desert; with only trifling exceptions, battles are fought by cowards afraid to run.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 16, "The Epitome" (p. 114)

“This is a common criticism: the idea that the atheist is guilty of a literalist reading of scripture, and that it’s a very naive way of approaching religion, and there’s a far more sophisticated and nuanced view of religion on offer and the atheist is disregarding that. A few problems with this: anyone making that argument is failing to acknowledge just how many people really do approach these texts literally or functionally - whether they’re selective literalists, or literal all the way down the line. There are certain passages in scripture that just cannot be read figuratively. And people really do live by the lights of what is literally laid out in these books. So, the Koran says “hate the infidel” and Muslims hate the infidel because the Koran spells it out ad nauseam. Now, it’s true that you can cherry-pick scripture, and you can look for all the good parts. You can ignore where it says in Leviticus that if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding night you’re supposed to stone her to death on her father’s doorstep. Most religious people ignore those passages, which really can only be read literally, and say that “they were only appropriate for the time” and “they don’t apply now”. And likewise, Muslims try to have the same reading of passages that advocate holy war. They say “well, these were appropriate to those battles that Mohammed was fighting, but now we don’t have to fight those battles”. This is all a good thing, but we should recognize what’s happening here: people are feeling pressure from a host of all-too-human concerns that have nothing, in principle, to do with God: secularism, and human rights, and democracy, and scientific progress. These have made certain passages in scripture untenable. This is coming from outside religion, and religion is now making a great show of its sophistication in grappling with these pressures. This is an example of religion losing the argument with modernity.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris in interview by Big Think (04/07/2007) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zV3vIXZ-1Y&t=6s 2000s

Death, God, Hate, War

“Who in life’s battle firm doth stand
Shall bear hope’s tender blossoms
Into the silent land!”

Johann Gaudenz von Salis-Seewis (1762–1834) Swiss poet, author, politician and officer

The Silent Land, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Life, Hope

“Technically, the Hurricane might have been able to win the Battle of Britain on its own. But for keeping up the spirits of the people on the ground while running rings round anything the Third Reich could throw at it? That was the job of the Spitfire, a symbol of British brilliance, a symbol of hope.”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer

I Know You Got Soul (2004)

People, Hope

“Eagle of the land, extensive thy glance.
I would have requested an active courser
Of vigorous trot, the price of the spoil of Taliesin.
One is the violent course on the bottom and the summit,
One is the gift of a baron to a lord.
One is the herd of stags in their fight.
One is the wolf not covetous of broom,
One is the country where a son is born,
And of one form and one sound is the battle-place of warriors.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Spoils of Taliesin, a Song to Urien

Wolf, Fight, Country

“The Book of Daniel is especially fitted to be a battle-ground between faith and unbelief. It admits of no half-way measures. It is either divine or an imposture. The writer, were he not Daniel, must have lied on a most frightful scale.”

Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–1882) British saint

Daniel the Prophet (1865)

Books, Faith, Way

“What is this world condition? Body is the world condition. And with body and form goes feeling, perception, consciousness, and all the activities throughout the world. The arising of form and the ceasing of form--everything that has been heard, sensed, and known, sought after and reached by the mind--all this is the embodied world, to be penetrated and realized.
…
The fool thinks he has won a battle when he bullies with harsh speech, but knowing how to be forbearing alone makes one victorious.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Gautama Buddha, Samyutta Nikaya [citation needed]
Unclassified

World, Fools, Feeling, Thinking

“Perpetual peace is a dream,” he said, “as much as we may yearn for it—but war! War is an integral part of God’s ordering of the universe, without which the world would be swamped in selfishness and materialism. War is the very vessel of honor, and who of us could endure a world without the divine folly of honor? That faith is especially true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause he little understands, during a campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use. On the field of battle, where a man lives or dies by the caprice of a bullet or the verdict of a bayonet, life is at its best and healthiest.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America

Source: Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (2009), p. 246 (spoken by the tyrannical president Deklan Comstock)

Life, God, War, World

“The sword is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of Allah, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven, and at the day of judgment his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim.”

John Galt (novelist) (1779–1839) British writer

Attributed to Muhammad, as quoted in The Wandering Jew (1820), p. 262 https://books.google.com/books?id=IARgAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA262&dq=The+sword+is+the+key+of+heaven+and+hell;+a+drop+of+blood+shed+in+the+cause+of+Allah,+a+night+spent+in+arms,+is+of+more+avail+than+two+months+of+fasting+or+prayer:+whosoever+falls+in+battle,+his+sins+are+forgiven&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjxyNix_-bcAhUaTY8KHT2oB74Q6AEIWTAJ#v=onepage&q=The%20sword%20is%20the%20key%20of%20heaven%20and%20hell%3B%20a%20drop%20of%20blood%20shed%20in%20the%20cause%20of%20Allah%2C%20a%20night%20spent%20in%20arms%2C%20is%20of%20more%20avail%20than%20two%20months%20of%20fasting%20or%20prayer%3A%20whosoever%20falls%20in%20battle%2C%20his%20sins%20are%20forgiven&f=false

Angels, Hell, Night

“Let me die in this old uniform in which I fought my battles. May God forgive me for ever having put on another.”

Benedict Arnold (1741–1801) Continental and later British Army general during the American Revolutionary War

Unverified, but reportedly said by Arnold on his deathbed in 1801, requesting to wear the uniform of the Colonial Army from before his defection to the British, as quoted in The Picturesque Hudson http://www.kellscraft.com/PicturesqueHudson/PicturesqueHudson08.html (1915) by Clifton Johnson

God, Forgiveness

“O surely this morning all sorrow is hidden,
All battle is hushed for this even at least;
And no one this noontide may hunger, unbidden
To the flowers and the singing and the joy of your feast
Where silent ye sit midst the world's tale increased.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

Love is Enough (1872), Song II: Have No Thought for Tomorrow

Hunger, World, Flowers, Singing

“I met [Meyerbeer] at the performance of my "Battle." Most of the composers then in Vienna were kind enough to undertake something or other in my orchestra, and the young man played the big drum. Ha! ha! ha! (a peal of laughter). I had reason not to be very well satisfied with him. He was always behindhand, and I had to give it him roundly. (New peal of laughter.) He must have felt mortified by my observations; but there is no reliance to be placed in him; he has not the courage to raise his arm at the proper moment.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

10th October, 1814
In: Johann Wenzel Tomaschek, "A Talk with Beethoven", The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol. 33, Beethoven Supplement (Dec. 15, 1892)

Courage, Laughter

“The battles of this century … are less likely to be the product of extreme political ideology—like those of the 20th century—but they could easily be fought around the questions of cultural or religious difference.”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

As attributed without citation in Awake! magazine (anonymous), January 2015 http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201501/watching-the-world-religion/ 2010s

Question

“From the hour of the invention of printing, books, and not kings, were to rule the world. Weapons forged in the mind, keen-edged, and brighter than a sunbeam, were to supplant the sword and battle-axe. Books! lighthouses built on the sea of time! Books! by whose sorcery the whole pageantry of the world's history moves in solemn procession before our eyes. From their pages great souls look down in all their grandeur, undimmed by the faults and follies of earthly existence, consecrated by time.”

Edwin Percy Whipple (1819–1886) American writer

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 386.

Books, World, Soul, History

“When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbours;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome
And get knock'd on the head for his labours.
To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And is always as nobly requited;
Then battle for freedom wherever you can.
And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Letter to Thomas Moore, 5 November 1820 http://books.google.com/books?id=K-s_AAAAYAAJ&q=%22When+a+man+hath+no+freedom+to+fight+for+at+home+Let+him+combat+for+that+of+his+neighbours+Let+him+think+of+the+glories+of+Greece+and+of+Rome+And+get+knock'd+on+the+head+for+his+labours+To+do+good+to+mankind+is+the+chivalrous+plan+And+is+always+as+nobly+requited+Then+battle+for+freedom+wherever+you+can+And+if+not+shot+or+hang'd+you+'ll+get+knighted%22&pg=PA377#v=onepage

Home, Thinking, Freedom, Fight

“We have never said that the fight against the Iranian aggression and against the expansionist Persian tendencies (which have been demonstrated by various means under successive regimes in Iran) is the decisive battle for the Arabs. What we have said, and still say, is that the fight against Zionism is the main decisive battle for the Arabs. This is a great objective reality, which cannot be denied or underestimated except by someone who would not only harm the Arab nation and its main causes, but would also overlook the main danger.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

President Saddam Hussein's Speech on National Day (1981)

Reality, Decision, Success, Fight

“If you forge your weapons for use in the political battle, don't be surprised if it gets turned against you.”

Peter Hitchens (1951) author, journalist

2013-07-03
Christopher Hitchens on the Clinton-Lewinsky Political Sex Scandal (1998)
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9mxMfbXAQ8?t=44m6s
On the fairness of comparing Clarence Thomas to Bill Clinton

“East and west and north, wherever the battle grew,
As men to a feast we fared, the work of the Will to do.

Bent upon vast beginnings, bidding anarchy cease —
(Had we hacked it to the Pit, we had left it a place of peace!) —

Marching, building, sailing, pillar of cloud or fire,
Sons of the Will, we fought the fight of the Will, our sire.”

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English poet, critic and editor

Source: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, II

Men, Peace, Fight

“Returning home on leave following my second year at West Point, I called on a great-uncle who had joined the Confederate Army at the age of sixteen and had fought in a number of major Civil War battles, including Gettysburg, and had been with Robert E. Lee at Appamatox. My Uncle White was the younger brother of my grandfather. He hated Yankees and Republicans, not necessarily in that order, and talked derisively about both. When I visited, he was seated in a wheel chair, in grudging acquiescence to the infirmities of age. Tobacco juice decorated his shirt and stains around a spittoon on the floor testified to the inaccuracy of his aim. Flies buzzed through screenless windows. "What are you doing with yourself, son?" Uncle White asked. I answered the old veteran with trepidation. "I'm going to that same school that Grant and Sherman went to, the Military Academy at West Point, New York."”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Uncle White was silent for what seemed like a long time. "That's all right, son," he said at last. "Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson went there too."
Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 12.

Hate, War, Age, School

“Narrated Abu Musa: The Prophet said, "I saw in a dream that I waved a sword and it broke in the middle, and behold, that symbolized the casualties the believers suffered on the Day (of the battle) of Uhud. Then I waved the sword again, and it became better than it had ever been before, and behold, that symbolized the Conquest (of Mecca) which Allah brought about and the gathering of the believers. "”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

[9, 87, 164]
Sunni Hadith

Dreams, Suffering

“The trope was eminently Oakeshottian. Politics was not a battle of interests, or a quest for truth, or a voyage of progress – it was an aesthetic performance, to captivate an audience. But it was not high theatre (Oakeshott had also insisted that politics was a second-rate activity). It was more like commercial theatre, the drama of the boulevards that plays to our emotions or embarrassments – Rattigan rather than Racine, he explained. On this stage, Mount has certainly given us a stylish production. We might call it the comedy of reform.”

Perry Anderson (1938) British historian

Source: Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas (2005), Ch. 2. "Constitutional Theatre, Ferdinand Mount" (1992), p. 48

Truth

“Children of any religion who have true faith must realize that God is the only One who knows all of everything. Therefore, only God can judge whether a person has faith, certitude, and determination or not and whether a person lives with that purity that can be called Islam or not. No one else can give that judgment. Do not wave your religion like a banner and go out to capture others. Only one kind of war is permissible in the eyes of God: the war you wage within yourself to defeat the demonic forces of lust, anger, jealousy, desire for revenge, and other evil feelings and attributes that may exist within your heart. God has sent each of the prophets as witnesses to the grace of God and as supports to help us in this inner war. This is the reason for the Qur'an. It is to help the true Muslim fight this inner battle and win victory over his own base desires that God sent the Messenger with the Qur'an.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

The True Meaning of Islam (undated)

God, War, Children, Jealousy

“The extreme moment of shock in battle presents in heightened and distorted form some of the distinctive characteristics of a whole society involved in war. These characteristics in turn represent a heightening and distortion of many of the traits of a social world cracked open by transformative politics. The threats to survival are immediate and shifting; no mode of association or activity can be held fixed if it stands as an obstacle to success. The existence of stable boundaries between passionate and calculating relationships disappears in the terror of the struggle. All settled ties and preconceptions shake or collapse under the weight of fear, violence, and surprise. What the experience of combat sharply diminishes is the sense of variety in the opportunities of self-expression and attachment, the value given to the bonds of community and to life itself, the chance for reflective withdrawal and for love. In all these ways, it is a deformed expression of the circumstance of society shaken up and restored to indefinition. Yet the features of this circumstance that the battle situation does share often suffice to make the boldest associative experiments seem acceptable in battle even if they depart sharply from the tenor of life in the surrounding society. Vanguardist warfare is the extreme case. It is the response of unprejudiced intelligence and organized collaboration to violence and contingency.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: Plasticity Into Power: Comparative-Historical Studies on the Institutional Conditions of Economic and Military Success (1987), p. 160

Love, Life, War, World

“The truth is, no study is possible on the battle-field; one does there simply what one can in order to apply what one knows. Therefore, in order to do even a little, one has already to know a great deal and to know it well.”

Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist

Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 175

Truth, Study

“Cancer – regardless of the type – is a disease that has touched every one of us through family or friends. It is my hope that in being candid about my battle, that i will raise awareness that will ultimately benefit others.”

Larry Hogan (1956) American politician

" Full Remarks: Governor Larry Hogan Announces Cancer Diagnosis http://governor.maryland.gov/2015/06/22/full-remarks-governor-larry-hogan-announces-cancer-diagnosis/"(22 June 2015)

Disease, Family, Hope

“I've made use of the beautiful weather to sketch and paint outside. I had been staying away from color for such a long time that it had become something quite foreign to me. Working in color was always a great joy to me. And now it is a great joy again. Still, I have to battle with it, wrestle with it, with all my strength. And one must be victorious. But if it weren't for the fight, all the beauty of it wouldn't exist at all, would it? I'm writing this mostly for Mother who, I believe, thinks my whole life is one constant act of egoistic ecstasy. But devotion to art also involves something unselfish.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

In a letter to her parents, from Worpswede, 10 September 1899; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 199
1899

Life, Beauty, Art, Color

“Our mission is to advance a Culture of Life where everyone is welcomed in life and defended in law. Our objectives to that end are to reverse Roe and defeat Planned Parenthood. I believe both of these goals are achievable in our lifetime if we remain committed, focused, optimistic and strategic. Although of course, in the end, the battle is not ours -- our duty is to remain faithful to the calling before us. As you rightly say, we have to oppose the lie… and the best weapon in that effort is the light of truth.”

Charmaine Yoest (1964) American anti-abortion activist

Interview with AUL Action's Charmaine Yoest on 'Open Letter to Barack Obama' http://www.catholic.org/news/national/story.php?id=30332 (October 31, 2008)

Life, Truth, Lie, Faith

“A man can be aroused to anger as easily as he is aroused to rut. The two emotions are closely linked. Anger and lust. So the warrior is aroused in battle and fights to dominate.”

David Gemmell book Quest for Lost Heroes

Source: Drenai series, Quest for Lost Heroes, Ch. 11

Fight, Anger

“What is this free enterprise system? It is the law of the jungle applied to economics. It is the law of every man for himself, as the elephant said when he was dancing among the chickens. That is not a bad philosophy if, like the hon. member for York - Sunbury, you happen to be in the elephant class, but it is likely to be depressing if you are a farmer or worker, and belong in the chicken group. Free enterprise means unrestricted competition; the race to the swift and the battle to the strong; nature red in tooth and claw.”

Tommy Douglas (1904–1986) Scottish-born Canadian politician

Budget Debate, House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario, March 22, 1943.

Law, Nature, Strong, Dance

“Here I must inject a personal note—I never shed blood upon the field of Sidwell Friends, nor did I fight the battles of Yale Law. I am a miner's son, and my father was a self-made man who unmade himself during my youth. Education was not a family legacy, and my kin belonged to the United Mine Workers of America, not to Skull and Bones. My forebears fought this country's wars from the bottom ranks, and I began my own military career as a private. I have felt the full arrogance of those to whom much was given, and personally, wish that I might come to bury the elite, not to praise them. Yet, those who would rise need examples to emulate. It grates on me to write it, but our military needs a return of the nation's elite to the officer corps, to the extent that a traditional elite, with its spotty but essential ideals of service, still exists.”

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

autobiographical aside from Beyond Terror, p. 319. Originally part of an essay entitled "Hucksters in Uniform" which appeared in the May 1999 edition of The Washington Monthly.
1990s, Hucksters in Uniform (1999)

War, Youth, Education, Family

“Those who seek a pro-life culture must accept that we will never persuade all 300 million Americans to agree with us. A pro-life culture can be built only from the ground up, person by person. For too long we have viewed the battle as purely political, but no political victory can change a degraded society. No Supreme Court ruling by itself can instill greater respect for life. And no Supreme Court justice can save our freedoms if we don't fight for them ourselves.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Federalizing Social Policy, January 30, 2006 http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst013006.htm 2000s, 2006-2009

Life, Justice, Freedom, Change

“Extraordinary rains pretty generally fall after great battles.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Life of Caius Marius
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Himuin was excessively arrogant on account of his troops and elephants. He advanced, fought, and routed the Mughals, whose heads lay in heaps, and whose blood flowed in streams. He thus at first vanquished the Mughal army; but as the brilliancy of the star of Prince Akbar’s fortune was not destined to be diminished, it chanced that, by the decree of the Almighty, an arrow struck Himun in the forehead. He told his elephant driver to take the elephant out of the field of battle…
“When Shah Kuli Beg was told of what had occurred, he came up to the elephant, and brought it into the presence of Bairam Khan. Bairam Khan, after prostrating himself, and returning thanks, caused HImUn to descend from the elephant, after which he bound his hands, and took him before the young and fortunate Prince, and said, As this is our first success, let Your Highness’s own august hand smite this infidel with the sword. The Prince, accordingly, struck him, and divided his head from his unclean body (Nov. 5, AD 1556).”

Hemu (1501–1556) General and Chief Minister of Adil Shah Suri

Tarikh-i Salatin-i Afaghana of Ahmad Yadgar, translated in Elliot and Dowson, Volume V, pp. 65-66. Quoted in S. R. Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition (1999) ISBN 9788185990583

Star, Chance, Success

“"Freedom!" their battle-cry,—
"Freedom! or leave to die!"”

George Henry Boker (1823–1890) American poet, playwright, and diplomat

The Black Regiment.

Freedom, Cry

“Such fools they were in Battle School, to let so few girls in. It left the boys completely helpless against a woman when they returned to Earth.”

Orson Scott Card Ender's Game hexalogy

Virlomi.
Ender's Game series, Shadow of the Giant (2005)

School, Fools, Girl, Boy

“Look at you people. Look at what's become of the mighty United Kingdom. This land used to be filled with kings and knights and noblemen. You used to rule half the planet, and now you're just as sad and pathetic as the Americans. You can pretend you're not, you can pretend you don't spend your days tucked away in some little pub downing your pints of ale; you can pretend you don't spend every single night filling your lungs and those around you with carcinogens and poisons from your fancy cigarettes and trendy cigars; you can pretend you don't knowingly stuff chewing tobacco in your mouth in one of the most disgusting habits I've ever seen in my life—something that will give you cancer inside of two years. You people are weak-minded. You have no heart, your spirit is broken. You're practically decomposing right before my very eyes as I talk to you, and the only thing you can do is boo or wave a crooked little finger at me and accuse me of being preachy. You people need somebody as righteous as myself to preach to you the proper way to live. You should all aspire to be as great as I am. Do I think I'm better than you? Absolutely, and it's not that hard because my mind is clear; my body, free of poison. Look at me—I am perfect in every way. My strength comes from within, and I don't need a crutch to get through my everyday life like you people, and I certainly don't need a crooked official like Scott Armstrong to fight my battles for me. I filed a formal complaint with the Board of Directors; and as far as tonight goes, I will beat R-Truth just like I'll beat him at Survivor Series, and just like I can easily beat up everybody here in this arena today. Because I am the Choice of a New Generation, and R-Truth's gonna come out here and ask you people, "What's Up?"”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

I'll answer that little riddle for you right now. I tell you "what's up" Straight-edge—that is what's up. No narcotics, no drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes, no prescription medication, and that, you sad, sad people, can save your entire pathetic country and the entire world.
November 13, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Life, People, Alcohol, Truth

“If I take a man into battle, my lord, i like to offer him a better than even chance that he'll march away with his skin intact. If I wanted to kill the buggers I'd just strangle them in their sleep. It's kinder.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 88
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)

Sleep, Chance

“The Reward due to so great and Distinguished a Character. The Subscribers beg leave to Report to your Honorable. House (Which We do in justice to the Character of so Brave a man) that under Our Own observation, we declare that A Negro Man Called Salem Poor of Col. Fryes Regiment, Capt. Ames. Company in the late Battle of Charleston, behaved like an Experienced Officer, as Well as an Excellent Soldier, to Set forth Particulars of his Conduct would be Tedious, We Would Only beg leave to say in the Person of this Negro Centers a Brave & gallant Soldier.”

William Prescott (1726–1795) Continental army soldier

Citation http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/salem-poor-original-patriot of Salem Poor

Justice, Housing, Personality

“If, as psychologists, we follow the analogy of the other biological sciences, we must expect to find normalcy synonymous with maximal efficiency of function. Survival of the fittest means survival of those members of a species whose organisms most successfully resist the encroachments of environmental antagonists, and continue to function with the greatest internal harmony. In the field of emotions, then, why would we alter this expectation? Why should we seek the spectacularly disharmonious emotions, the feelings that reveal a crushing of ourselves by environment, and consider these affective responses as our normal emotions? If a jungle beast is torn and wounded during the course of an ultimately victorious battle, it would be a spurious logic indeed that attributed its victory to its wounds. If a human being be emotionally torn and mentally disorganized by fear or rage during a business battle from which, ultimately, he emerges victorious, it seems equally nonsensical to ascribe his conquering strength to those emotions symptomatic of his temporary weakness and defeat. Victory comes in proportion as fear is banished. Perhaps the battle may be won with some fear still handicapping the victor, but that only means that the winner's maximal strength was not required.”

William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) American psychologist, lawyer, inventor and comic book writer

Source: The Emotions of Normal People (1928), p.2

Fear, Feeling, Business, Rage

“In Europe itself it is not probable that war will ever absolutely cease until science discovers some destroying force so simple in its administration, so horrible in its effects, that all art, all gallantry, will be at an end, and battles will be massacres which the feelings of mankind will be unable to endure.”

William Winwood Reade (1838–1875) British historian

Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter IV, "Intellect", pp. 405-6.

War, Art, Feeling, Science

“A great work by an Englishman is like a great battle won by England. It is an unfading bay tree.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) English poet

Letter to Robert Bridges (13 October 1886)
Letters, etc

Tree

“The battle we have fought, and are still fighting, for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it. … So we must count on watching and striving for these trees, and should always be glad to find anything so surely good and noble to strive for.”

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

pages 271-284 (at page 276)
1890s, The National Parks and Forest Reservations, 1895

Tree, Fight, Parting

“Let us therefore continue our triumphal march to the realization of the American dream…. for all of us today, the battle is in our hands… The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways that lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions… We are still in for the season of suffering… How long? Not long. Because no lie can live forever… our God is marching on.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Speech on the steps of the State Capitol Building, Montgomery, Alabama (25 March 1965), as transcribed from a tape recording; reported in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989), which states that this speech was not reported in its entirety.
1960s

God, Lie, Dreams, Suffering

“At the end of the Washington Monument rally in September, 1976, I was admitted to the second entering class at Unification Theological Seminary. During the next two years, I took a long prayer walk every evening. I asked God what He wanted me to do with my life, and the answer came not only through my prayers, but also through Father's many talks to us, and through my studies. Father encouraged us to set our sights high and accomplish great things. He also spoke out against the evils in the world; among them, he frequently criticized Darwin's theory that living things originated without God's purposeful, creative activity. My studies included modern theologians who took Darwinism for granted and thus saw no room for God's involvement in nature or history; in the process, they re-interpreted the fall, the incarnation, and even God as products of human imagination. Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph. D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.”

Jonathan Wells (1942) American intelligent design advocate

Darwinism: Why I Went for a Second Ph.D. http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/DARWIN.htm

Life, God, World, Imagination

“It is precisely now and only now, when in the starving regions people are eating human flesh, and hundreds if not thousands of corpses are littering the roads, that we can (and therefore must) carry out the confiscation of church valuables… I come to the categorical conclusion that precisely at this moment we must give battle to the Black Hundred clergy in the most decisive and merciless manner and crush its resistance with such brutality that it will not forget it for decades to come… The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in executing for this reason, the better.”

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

As quoted in Richard Pipes, The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (1996), pp. 152-4.
Attributions

People, Decision, Forgetting

“As when a tigress hears the noise of the hunters, she bristles into her stripes and shakes off the sloth of sleep; athirst for battle she loosens her jaws and flexes her claws, then rushes upon the troop and carries in her mouth a breathing man, food for her bloody young.”
Qualis ubi audito venantum murmure tigris horruit in maculas somnosque excussit inertes, bella cupit laxatque genas et temperat ungues, mox ruit in turmas natisque alimenta cruentis spirantem fert ore virum.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book II, Line 128

Food, Sleep

“There was in the air the glamor of a battle, the holy battle raging for the assertion of a new truth. My youth plunged full in it.”

Joseph Stella (1877–1946) American artist

Joseph Stella (1911); Quoted in: Ruth L. Bohan. Looking into Walt Whitman: American Art, 1850–1920, (2006). p. 193

Truth, Youth, Rage

“…the Jews will gather from all parts of the world into occupied Palestine, not in order to bring about the anti-Christ and the end of the world, but rather that Allah the Glorified and Most High wants to save you from having to go to the ends of the world [to kill them], for they have gathered in one place–they have gathered in one place–and there the final and decisive battle will take place.”

Hassan Nasrallah (1960) Secretary General of Hezbollah

Quote, 2002 Source: Speech http://audio.moqawama.org/details.php?cid=1&linkid=189 Transcription and translation http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/189519/did-netanyahu-put-anti-semitic-words-in-hezbollahs-mouth

World, Decision, Christ, Parting

“The simplest way that I can understand therapy is that we're born a certain way, we're taught to be something different, and we spend our whole lives trying to unravel it and ultimately align ourselves with who we really are. Life, experiences, traumas -- whatever -- they all add up to make you some altered version of what you are. So there's this battle that goes on between what you are and what you become, and it's been very important for me to unravel what I was taught to be or what I became. and to draw a direct parallel to music -- the closer I get back to being who I really am, the stronger the music gets, because I think what talent I do have is connected to that person, it's not a manipulative process, it's intuitive. You can learn about chords and guitars, but there's a piece of you that makes it individual, and it's been a slow process for me to become whatever it is that I'm supposed to be.”

Billy Corgan (1967) American musician, songwriter, producer, and author

Smashing Pumpkins (1996)

Life, Music, Way, Understanding

“We are awaiting aggression by Israel and any supporters of Israel. We will make it a decisive battle and get rid of Israel once and for all… This is the dream of every Arab.”

Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) second president of Egypt

As quoted in the Washington Post (27 July 1959)

Dreams, Support, Decision

Quotes about battle page 10

Quotes about battle
page 10