Quotes about capitulation (57 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“If Paulus's army had capitulated before the end, the Russians would have had the advantage of withdrawing forces against Paulus and against the southern front, where I had only two Romanian armies. Therefore, the resistance of the Sixth German Army, even to the death of the last man, was necessary.”

Erich von Manstein (1887–1973) German general

To Leon Goldensohn (14 June 1946). Quoted in "The Nuremberg Interviews" - by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

Death

“The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God…or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Life , God , World

“Peace ought to be the result of a system well considered, founded on the true interests of the different countries, honorable to each, and ought not to be either a capitulation or the result of a threat.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Peace , Country

“The soldiers have the plunder of a city that is stormed, the generals of one which capitulates.”
Expugnatae urbis praedam ad militem, deditae ad duces pertinere.

Tacitus book Histories

Book III, 19; Church-Brodribb translation
Histories (100-110)

“Is to accept the leadership of a crumbling country a crime? Is to prevent the Russians, the natural enemy of Germany, from obtaining our arms and manpower a crime? In Russian eyes it probably is. But I'm referring to the eyes of a westerner. I knew that we had to capitulate and I wanted it to be to the Americans and British, and not to the East. I'm not even accused of war crimes in the sense of the atrocities. It's clear they have no case against me. I came into a powerful position in 1943. How can I be accused of a conspiracy?”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

To Leon Goldensohn, May 2, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.

War , Nature , Sense , Country

“You must fight or capitulate to those with whom you refuse to talk.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Fight

“Usually, it is man who attacks; as for me, I defend myself, and I often capitulate.”

Napoleon III (1808–1873) French emperor, president, and member of the House of Bonaparte

On his numerous mistresses, as quoted in The True Story of the Empress Eugénie (1921) by Guy Jean Raoul Eugène Charles Emmanuel de Savoie-Carignan Soissons, Ccomte de Soissons
Variant translation: It is usually the man who attacks. As for me, I defend myself, and I often capitulate.
As quoted in The Mistresses : Domestic Scandals of the 19th-Century Monarchs (1966) by E. Cobham Brewer

“… to put an end to the epidemics, we were forced to burn the bodies of an incalculable number of people who were destroyed by the disease. So we were forced to build crematoria, and on this account they are loosing a bond for us. "He also stated that he punished the culprit if the atrocities occurred in the camps." On the Einsatzgruppen: "The war on the Eastern front made the demands more difficult for our soldiers. A terrible climate, never-ending distances, an enemy population and constantly apparent partisans. Just because it was difficult, the troops prevailed. So they were forced to destroy entire villages if there was resistance and gunfire from such a village. Russians are not ordinary enemies, we can not understand their mentality. In the most desperate situations, they would refuse to capitulate. If, because of these difficulties in the East, the Jewish people suffered large casualties, it must be remembered that the German people also suffered severely."”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

April 20, 1945 in a meeting with Norbert Masur, a representative of the World Jewish Congress.

War , People , Disease , Understanding

“I see that everybody has lost their head since the infamous capitulation of Bailén. I realise that I must go there myself to get the machine working again.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Said after Dupont's capitulation at w:Bailén to the Spanish (1808), as quoted in The Art of Warfare on Land (1974) by David G. Chandler, p. 164

“Among the masses, what revisionism does is serve the cause of capitulation to internal reaction, concretely to the big bourgeoisie and the landlords, to the landlord-bureaucrat capitalist dictatorship which is the Peruvian State of today.”

Abimael Guzmán (1934–2021) Peruvian communist

Interview with Chairman Gonzalo

“I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.”

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

Source: Self-Reliance

Thinking , Dead

“There can be no real peace when living with someone who has already declared war, no peace but capitulation. And even that, as we see around us, doesn't lead to further peace but to further degradation and exploitation. We're responsible for not only what we do but for what is in our power to stop. Before we can speak of peace, we have to speak honestly of stopping, by any and all means possible, those who have declared war on the world and on us. Those who destroy wont stop because we ask nicely. There is only one language that they understand, and everyone here knows what it is. Yet we don't speak of it openly.”

Derrick Jensen book A Language Older Than Words

A Language Older Than Words (2000)

War , World , Peace , Understanding

“Thus it was that Sherman, after his interview with the President on board the River Queen, became impressed with the latter's desire to terminate hostilities without further bloodshed, and that the most liberal terms should be conceded to his opponents. Why it was that such a howl was sent up at the North when General Sherman entered into an agreement with General Johnston I don't know, especially as that agreement was to be submitted to the Government for confirmation. There are points in those terms of capitulation which, it seems to me, should only have been decided upon by the Government itself, which, it will be perceived, is what General Sherman intended in the agreement drawn up between him and General Johnston. He had been so impressed with the President's views of concluding a peace that he desired only to carry out after his death what he supposed to be his policy, and which, if living, he felt certain Mr. Lincoln would have approved. At least he would have considered it, and would not have 'rejected it with the disdain' exhibited by the new President, Andrew Johnson, through his Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 317

Death , Hostility , War , Peace

“Capitulation, sycophancy, and cowardice will only undermine us… Sometimes, you have to courageously follow your own path and not try to curry favor with anyone.”

Robert Aumann (1930) Israeli-American mathematician

From an article on Israel Hayom http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=23811

Courage

“I will recall once more Russia's most recent history.
Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.
Individual savings were depreciated, and old ideals destroyed. Many institutions were disbanded or reformed carelessly. Terrorist intervention and the Khasavyurt capitulation that followed damaged the country's integrity. Oligarchic groups — possessing absolute control over information channels — served exclusively their own corporate interests. Mass poverty began to be seen as the norm. And all this was happening against the backdrop of a dramatic economic downturn, unstable finances, and the paralysis of the social sphere.
Many thought or seemed to think at the time that our young democracy was not a continuation of Russian statehood, but its ultimate collapse, the prolonged agony of the Soviet system.
But they were mistaken.
That was precisely the period when the significant developments took place in Russia. Our society was generating not only the energy of self-preservation, but also the will for a new and free life.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Kremlin RU, http://kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2005/04/25/2031_type70029type82912_87086.shtml (25 April 2005)
2000 - 2005

Life , Democracy , History , Thinking

“If you examine the record of the so-called the anti-war movement in this country and imagine what would have happened had its counsel been listened to over the last 15 and more years, you would have a world in which the following would be the case:Saddam Hussein would be the owner and occupier of Kuwait, he would have succeeded in the annexation, not merely the invasion, but the abolition of an Arab and Muslim state that was a member of the Arab League and of the United Nations. And with these resources as we now know because he lost that war, he was attempting to equip himself with the most terrifying arsenal that it was possible for him to lay his hands on. That's one consequence of anti-war politics, that's what would have happened.In the meanwhile, Slobodan Milošević would have made Bosnia part of a greater Serbia, and Kosovo would have been ethnically cleansed and also annexed. The Taliban would be still in power in Afghanistan if the anti-war movement had been listened to, and al-Qaeda would still be their guests. And Saddam Hussein, with his crime family, would still be privately holding ownership over a terrorized people in a state that's been most aptly described as a concentration camp above ground and a mass grave underneath it.Now if I had that record politically, I would be extremely modest, I wouldn't be demanding explanations from those of us who said it's about time that we stop this continual capitulation to dictatorship, to racism, to aggression and to totalitarian ideology. That we will not allow to be appeased in Iraq, the failures in Rwanda, and in Bosnia, and in Afghanistan, and elsewhere. And we take pride in having taken that position, and we take pride in our Iraqi and Kurdish friends who are conducting this struggle, on our behalves I should say.”

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

Christopher Hitchens vs. George Galloway debate http://www.seixon.com/blog/archives/2005/09/galloway_vs_hit.html, New York City (2005-09-14): On the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2000s, 2005

Time , Parting , Country , War

“We now look into history with the generous pride of the nationalist, not with the cramped prejudice of the partisan. We do homage to Irish valour, whether it conquers on the walls of Derry, or capitulates with honour before the ramparts of Limerick; and, sir, we award the laurel to Irish genius, whether it has lit its flames within the walls of old Trinity, or drawn its inspiration from the sanctuary of Saint Omer’s. Acting in this spirit, we shall repair the errors and reverse the mean condition of the past. If not, we perpetuate the evil that has for so many years consigned this Country to the calamities of war and the infirmities of vassalage, "We must tolerate each other," said Henry Grattan, the inspired preacher of Irish nationality — he whose eloquence, as Moore has described it, was the very music of Freedom — "We must tolerate each other, or we must tolerate the common enemy…"But, sir, whilst we must endeavour wisely to conciliate let us not, to the strongest foe, nor in the most tempting emergency, weakly capitulate…Let earnest truth, stern fidelity to principle, love for all who bear the name of Irishmen, sustain, ennoble and immortalise this cause. Thus shall we reverse the dark fortunes of the Irish race, and call forth here a new nation from the ruins of the old.Thus shall a Parliament moulded from the soil, pregnant with the sympathies and glowing with the genius of the soil, be here raised up. Thus shall an honourable kingdom be enabled to fulfil the great ends that a bounteous Providence hath assigned her—which ends have been signified to her in the resources of her soil and the abilities of her sons.”

Thomas Francis Meagher (1823–1867) Irish nationalist & American politician

Legislative "Union" with Greath Britain (1846)

Love , War , Truth , Music

“To be honest, to be kind — to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends, but these without capitulation — above all, on the same grim condition, to keep friends with himself — here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy. He has an ambitious soul who would ask more; he has a hopeful spirit who should look in such an enterprise to be successful. There is indeed one element in human destiny that not blindness itself can controvert: whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed; failure is the fate allotted.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Across the Plains

Source: Across the Plains (1892), Ch. XII, A Christmas Sermon.

Fate , Family , Hope , Soul

“Less than three months after Japanese capitulation… he discarded all the democratic concepts expressed by his predecessors wartime undertakings… He ditched the Roosevelt thesis and put in first place his declared determination to use the all the power of the government to enable United States imperialism to dominate the post-war world and organize it in its own image.”

Tim Buck (1891–1973) Canadian politician

Referring to United States President Harry Truman Tim Buck A Conscience for Canada

War , World

“The failure of women to produce great works of art and all that can be explained in terms of this statement. Insofar as she escapes or rejects her conditioning, the little girl may excel in those kinds of intellectual activity that are called creative, but eventually she either capitulates to her conditioning, or the conflicts become so pressing that her efficiency is hampered.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

The Raw Material
The Female Eunuch (1970)

Women , Art , Girl , Failure

“Dr. Misra cities Firishta as follows: “In the year A. H. 435 (A. D. 1043) the Raja of Delhy, in conjunction with other Rajas took Hansy, Thanesur, and other dependencies from the governors to whom Modood (the successor of Masud) had entrusted them. The Hindus from thence marched towards the fort of Nagarkota [Kangra] which they besieged for four months and the garrison being distressed for provisions and no succour coming from Lahore was under the necessity of capitulating. The Hindus according to their practice erected new idols… The successor of the Raja of Delhy gave such confidence to the Indian chiefs of Punjab and other places that… they put on the aspect of lions.”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Cited in S.R. Goel, (1994) Heroic Hindu resistance to Muslim invaders, 636 AD to 1206 AD. ISBN 9788185990187 , quoting Ram Gopal Misra, Indian Resistance to Early Muslim Invaders Upto 1206 A.D. (1983).
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

Confidence , Dependency

““You’ll find God among the poor,” they say. Is that true anymore? Is the connection between poverty and divinity simply a panacea for the world’s destitute, an assurance that they’ll be rewarded in the hereafter? Or does a material deficit provide space for God? My love of God elevates the intention of this book beyond the dry and admirable establishment of collectivized communities. I am enraptured by the magnetic pull of evolution: What is this energy that heals the body and escalates one cell to two, that repairs and creates and calculates in harmony with environment, outside of time? Where is evolution trying to go? Evolutionary psychologists would likely say the imposition of an anthropocentric concept like “trying” or “intending” is naïve, but I’m not going to ask one, they get enough airtime, the killjoys. I remain uncharmed by the incessant rationalization that requires the spirit’s capitulation. The infusion of the scientific with the philosophical is materialism. The manifesto for our salvation is not in this sparse itinerary.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Love , God , Books , World

“You see, dear reader, so much of what's doled out as punk merely amounts to saying I suck, you suck, the world sucks, and who gives a damn — which is, er, ah, somehow insufficient.Don't ask me why; I'm just an observer, really. But any observer could tell that, to put in in terms of Us vs. Them, saying the above is exactly what They would want you to do, because it amounts to capitulation.”

Lester Bangs (1948–1982) American music critic and journalist

"The Clash" (December 1977), p. 225
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (1988)

World

“Science is turning into a monastery for the Order of Capitulant Friars. Logical calculus is supposed to supersede man as moralist. We submit to the blackmail of the "superior knowledge" that has the temerity to assert that nuclear war can be, by derivation, a good thing, because this follows from simple arithmetic.”

Stanisław Lem book His Master's Voice

Source: His Master's Voice (1968), Ch. 9

War , Knowledge , Science

“Bernie Sanders' election campaign had given rise to much hope. By daring to introduce a socialist perspective into the debate, Sanders initiated the sound politicization of public opinion, which is no more impossible in the United States than elsewhere. We can only deplore, under these conditions, Sanders' capitulation and his rallying to the support of Clinton.”

Samir Amin (1931–2018) Egyptian economist

The Election of Donald Trump https://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/amin301116.html (30 November 2016), Monthly Review Magazine (MRzine)

Hope , Support

“We are witnessing the end of the late 20th- century progressive welfare democracy. Its fiscal bankruptcy is merely a symptom of a more fundamental bankruptcy: its insufficiency as an animating principle for society. The children and grandchildren of those fascists and republicans who waged a bitter civil war for the future of Spain now shrug when a bunch of foreigners blow up their capital. Too sedated even to sue for terms, they capitulate instantly. Over on the other side of the equation, the modern multicultural state is too watery a concept to bind huge numbers of immigrants to the land of their nominal citizenship. So they look elsewhere and find the jihad. The Western Muslim’s pan-Islamic identity is merely the first great cause in a world where globalized pathologies are taking the place of old-school nationalism.”

Mark Steyn book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It

America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (2006)

War , Children , World , School

““When material needs are largely satisfied,” writes Carl Rogers, “as they tend to be for many people in this affluent society, individuals are turning to the psychological world, groping for a greater degree of authenticity and fulfillment.” The clear distinction between material and psychic needs is already the mystification; it capitulates to the ideology of the affluent society which affirms the material structure is sound, conceding only that some psychic and spiritual values might be lacking. Exactly this distinction sets up “authenticity” and “fulfillment” as so many more commodities for the shopper. Rather it is the fissure itself which is the source of the ills—between work and “free” time, material structure and psychological “world,” producers and consumers.”

Russell Jacoby (1945) American historian

Source: Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing (1975), p. 48-49

People , World , Time

“I am not capitulating.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

Berenger's last sentence from Rhinoceros (1959)

“I believe that historical analogies are always wrong. This a long discussion, but, to me, the most dangerous thing about Chamberlain’s capitulation to Hitler at Munich is not the fact that Munich happened and it led to further Nazi aggression and so on and so forth, but that the example of Munich has been used to support thousands upon thousands of bad policies and inappropriate decisions. LeMay called JFK’s recommendation for a “quarantine” (that is, a blockade) in the Cuban Missile Crisis “worse than Munich”. Would nuclear war have been a better alternative? But nuclear war was averted by Kennedy’s policies. And thirty years later the Soviet Union collapsed without the need for nuclear war. Was LeMay right? I don’t think so. But again, the example of Munich was invoked to justify the invasion of Iraq. Appeasing Saddam, appeasing Hitler. The use of the Munich analogy does not clarify, it obscures. History is like the weather. Themes do repeat themselves, but never in the same way. And analogies became rhetorical flourishes and sad ex post facto justifications rather than explanations. In the end, they explain nothing.”

Errol Morris (1948) American filmmaker and writer

Source: It Becomes a Self-fulfilling Thing http://errolmorris.com/content/interview/believer0406.html

War , Sadness , Way , History

“By capitulating to life, this world has betrayed nothingness.... I resign from movement, and from my dreams. Absence! You shall be my sole glory.... Let "desire" be forever stricken from the dictionary, and from the soul! I retreat before the dizzying farce of tomorrows. And if I still cling to a few hopes, I have lost forever the faculty of hoping.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)
Variant: By capitulating to life, this world has betrayed nothingness... I resign from movement, and from my dreams. Absence! You shall be my sole glory... Let “desire” be forever stricken from the dictionary, and from the soul! I retreat before the dizzying farce of tomorrows. And if I still cling to a few hopes, I have lost forever the faculty of hoping.

Life , World , Dreams , Hope

“If you want to avoid upsetting these people (Muslim fundamentalists) you have to let Indonesia commit genocide in East Timor, otherwise they'll be upset with you. You'll have made an enemy. If you tell them they can't throw acid in the faces of unveiled women in Karachi they will be annoyed with you. If you say we insist, we think that cartoonists in Copenhagen can print satire on the Prophet Muhammed you've just made an enemy. You've brought it on. You're encouraging it to happen. So unless you're willing to commit suicide for yourself and for this culture, get used to the compromises you'll have to make and the eventual capitulation that will come to you, but bloody well don't do that in my name…”

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

Speech at Freedom From Religion Foundation on 12 October 2007.
2000s, 2007

Women , People , Thinking , Suicide

“But Hess is not a man of strong character. He may be capable of a great sacrifice. But simple, straightforward opposition, when he considers that something wrong is being done, is not for him… He often acted as he did in my conflict with the party against his own better judgment. He kept silence. He capitulated to the demands of the party.”

Hermann Rauschning (1887–1982) German politician

Source: Men in Chaos (1942), p. 56

Strong , Silence

“I call it simply the Book, with no qualifications or epithets, and in this abstinence and restraint there is a helpless sigh, silent capitulation to the immeasurableness of the transcendent; for no word, no allusion, could glisten, scent the air, or drift with such a shudder of terror, with any inkling of that unnameable thing, the very first taste of which, on the tip of the tongue, surpasses the capacity of our rapture.”

Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) Polish novelist and painter

“The Book” http://www.schulzian.net/translation/sanatorium/book1.htm
His father, Books

Books

“Today, 9 May, exactly forty-nine months and three days after the Fascist attack on Yugoslavia, the most powerful aggressive force in Europe, Germany, has capitulated.”

Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman

Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994), p. 252.
Other

“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 so in City after City, street-barricades are piled, and truculent, more or less murderous insurrection begins; populace after populace rises, King after King capitulates or absconds; and from end to end of Europe Democracy has blazed up explosive, much higher, more irresistible and less resisted than ever before; testifying too sadly on what a bottomless volcano, or universal powder-mine of most inflammable mutinous chaotic elements, separated from us by a thin earth-rind, Society with all its arrangements and acquirements everywhere, in the present epoch, rests! The kind of persons who excite or give signal to such revolutions—students, young men of letters, advocates, editors, hot inexperienced enthusiasts, or fierce and justly bankrupt desperadoes, acting everywhere on the discontent of the millions and blowing it into flame,—might give rise to reflections as to the character of our epoch. Never till now did young men, and almost children, take such a command in human affairs.”

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

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The Present Time (February 1, 1850)

Men , Children , Democracy , Universe

“On the one hand I did think the war was less than righteous. On the other hand I love my country. And I valued my life in a small town and my friends and family. So I wrestled with what was, for me, at least, more torturous and devastating and emotionally painful than anything that happened in Vietnam. Do you go off and kill people if you're not pretty sure it's right? And if your nation isn't pretty sure it's right? If there isn't some consensus, do you do that? In the end, I just capitulated, and one day I got on a bus with some other recent graduates, and we went over to Sioux Falls about sixty miles away, and raised our hands and went into the Army. But it wasn't a decision; it was a forfeiture of a decision. It was letting my body go, turning a switch in my conscience, just turning it off, so it wouldn't be barking at me saying, "You're doing a bad and evil and stupid and unpatriotic thing."”

Tim O'Brien (1946) American novelist

from the companion book, p. 318
From The Vietnam War (2017)

Love , Life , Pain , War

“The churches became a major target for Communist-Socialist infiltration many years ago. These people were successful in capturing many key positions in a number of important religious organizations. Some religious leaders openly advocate and defend Communist principles. They are apologists for the Soviet Union and even advocate capitulation under threat of atomic war.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

War , People , Success

“The British…used to regard foreigners as either a comic turn or a sexual menace. To learn a European language…was, at best, to seek to acquire a sort of girls’-finishing-school ornament, at worst, to capitulate feebly to the enemy.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Non-Fiction, A Mouthful of Air: Language and Languages, Especially English (1992)

School , Girl , Learning

“The “animal rights movement” … is at once colossally powerful but ultimately hobbled by a weak spot both miniscule and fatal. … That colossal power emanates from hundreds of thousands of everyday activists who justifiably believe that conscientious consumers can, through a wide variety of measures, take gradual steps toward removing animal products from their diet. These true believers do the grunt work of activism: they hand out pamphlets, write books, blog, make documentaries, start campus veg societies, publish vegan recipes, open vegan food carts, work for animal sanctuaries, run veganic farms, and do basically anything they can to encourage consumers to contemplate the face on their plate. I consider myself a member of this noble tribe. The heel of the movement, by contrast, consists of a handful of radicals, mostly academics, who do little more than set an unrealistic benchmark of success … First, it seeks to eliminate all animal exploitation, in every realm of life, immediately, and without compromise or strategic capitulation; and second, it aims to eliminate all forms of oppression … The heel does not want the good, or even the better. It wants perfection.”

James E. McWilliams (1968) American historian

"Radical Activism and the Future of Animal Rights", in Pacific Standard (3 July 2013) https://psmag.com/social-justice/radical-activism-and-the-future-of-animal-rights-61789.

Life , Books , Food , Success

“The essence of these tactics is some voluntary but irreversible sacrifice of freedom of choice. They rest on the paradox that the power to constrain an adversary may depend on the power to bind oneself; that, in bargaining, weakness is often strength, freedom may be freedom to capitulate, and to burn bridges behind one may suffice to undo an opponent.”

Thomas C. Schelling (1921–2016) American economist

An essay on bargaining (The strategy of conflict)

Freedom , Dependency

“On the 26th of Mohurrum, in the year AH 861 (AD Dec. 23, 1465), the King again proceeded to Mundulgur; and after a vigorous siege occupied the lower fort, wherein many Rajpoots were put to the sword, but the hill-fort still held out; to reduce which might have been a work of time but the reservoirs of water failing in consequence of the firing of the cannon, the garrison was obliged to capitulate, and Rana Koombho stipulated to pay ten lacks of tunkas. This event happened on the 20th of Zeehuj of the same year AH 861 (AD Nov. 8, 1457), exactly eleven months after the King’s leaving Mando. On the following day the King caused all the temples to be destroyed, and musjids to be erected in their stead, appointing the necessary officers of religion to perform daily worship…”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn Mahmûd Khaljî of Malwa (AD 1435-1469) Mandalgadh (Rajasthan)
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

Religion , Water , Time

“"The only trend I do not like in rap right now is the message rap. I consider the message rap the equivalent of what strings were to rock 'n' roll in the late '50s - a capitulation to the adult norm who can't accept the music on its own terms. The people who considered "Sixty Minute Man" by Billy Ward and the, "Annie Had a Baby" - as the pinnacles of '50s R&B now are super uptight over the - in quotes - hotel/motel lyrics of rap. Rap is definitely as true to the essence of rock 'n roll as anything that's out there today."”

Aaron Fuchs

Aaron Fuchs quoted by David Toop (1991). Rap Attack 2, p. 120. New York: Serpent's Tail. .

People , Music , Quotes , Baby

“I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

On his final illness, 1784, p. 566
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“Our sole aim was, by virtue of this war, to rid ourselves of the lot of them, however many international decisions there were. Each one represented a blow to our…independence…And, just as it was our dearly held goal to lift the Capitulations and the Mt. Lebanon concessions, we also desired to destroy the signed understanding concerning the reforms in Eastern Anatolia…”

Ahmed Djemal (1872–1922) Ottoman general

Quoted in "A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility" - by Taner Akçam, Paul Bessemer - History - 2006 - Page 118.
Quotess

War , Understanding , Decision

“1920. Both of us were about to capitulate facing spiritual breakdown. Then we helped each other to stand tall and did not falter.
My answer was: Resistance!”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

1920. Wir standen beide im Begriff, vor seelischem Zusammenbruch zu kapitulieren. Da richteten wir uns aneinander auf und strauchelten kaum.
Meine Antwort war: Trotz!
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Help

“There is a point beyond which conciliation looks like capitulation. I do not believe I passed that point, but others have thought otherwise.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Address at Columbia University (1991)
Context: Ibn Rushd's ideas were silenced in their time. And throughout the Muslim world today, progressive ideas are in retreat. Actually Existing Islam reigns supreme, and just as the recently destroyed "Actually Existing Socialism" of the Soviet terror-state was horrifically unlike the utopia of peace and equality of which democratic socialists have dreamed, so also is Actually Existing Islam a force to which I have never given in, to which I cannot submit.
There is a point beyond which conciliation looks like capitulation. I do not believe I passed that point, but others have thought otherwise.

“Time is of the essence, the clock is ticking and our window is closing. Diplomacy cannot be open-ended. War should be avoided. Capitulation is unthinkable. There can only be one real solution: the moment has come for the world to invest in the people of Iran themselves. Change from within, and at the hands of the Iranian people, is the only legitimate, and the least costly solution. I know my compatriots are doing all they can, with great passion, sense of duty and sacrifice. Do heed their call, and let them know that they are not alone. To the students of Johns Hopkins I encourage you to raise awareness on this campus and join with other student movements across the world that are bringing visibility to the human rights abuses and lack of freedom in Iran. To the faculty and media, I encourage you to analyze and write about the disastrous governance of this regime and the demands of our freedom-seeking citizens and our civil society. There is much to cover. If we all unite in our voices and efforts, Iran will one day – and hopefully very soon – return from this dark journey into the light.”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

Iran: Unleashing Her Potential Through Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=465&page=1, Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium, Johns Hopkins University, Oct. 12, 2010.
Speeches, 2010

War , People , World , Sense

“I think [Israel attacking Iran] would be a very disastrous event if it were to occur. I have long stated that I think this would be a lose-lose proposition by and large, especially when there's a much better alternative in play, which will be much less costly and far more legitimate than trying to bring any change as a result of any kind of external measures, particularly of the violent and military kind. You have in place the best natural army in the world: namely, the Iranian people themselves, who have bravely fought this fight for years, without any help or support from anyone in the international community. Today, they are already committed to that struggle and I think this is a much better way to put pressure on the regime and abide by international rules. It's a much better way to help the Iranian people bring about whatever changes they want in Iran and nothing is being done about this while everybody contemplates striking the country just because they don’t have faith in diplomacy, which was doomed from the very beginning. I think there's still a chance for a lot of serious fundamental change that will bring an end to all the threats if Iran wants to change from this regime to a democratic nation. If it invests time and effort in helping the movement of the young people in Iran today and be supportive of their demands; be supportive of what they want; engage them after 30 years of limiting engagement to only members of the regime and its representatives. I don't think that's far too much to ask for those of us who are fighting for freedom. What I am saying is that in my opinion, not using this opportunity and going straight to conflict would be historically criminal. That option has to be given its chance but the time is limited and the window of opportunity is now. I hope that many key governments will decide to commit some of their policies to give a chance for this movement to succeed before jumping to conclusions that the only familiars we're left with are either capitulation or attacking Iran.”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

As quoted by Felice Friedson, Iranian Crown Prince: Ahmadinejad's regime is "delicate and fragile" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=459&page=2, August 12, 2010.
Interviews, 2010

People , World , Faith , Hope

“Till now we Maharashtrians kept saying that Shivaji Utsav is only a historical commemoration and it has no political colour. But the festival that we have organized here in Nashik is both historical and political. Only those people, who have the capability to struggle for the freedom of their country just like Shivaji Maharaj, have the real right to organize and celebrate a festival commemorating his memory. Our main objective must therefore be to strive towards breaking the shackles of colonial rule. If our only aims are finding solace in foreign rule, earning fat salaries, be peaceful negotiators with the government on inconsequential issues such as lowering taxes, diluting some laws here and there, and secure ourselves enough to eat, lead comfortable lives, earn pensions and privileges—then this Utsav is not for you or for Shivaji, but that of the last Peshwa Baji Rao who capitulated to British might! Here we are invoking the god of revolution, Shivaji Maharaj, so that he may inspire and instil that energy in all of us. Depending on circumstances our means might change, but the end is non-negotiable and that end is total and complete freedom for our motherland.”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

From a speech by V. D. Savarkar, quoted in Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 (2019)

God , Peace , Dependency , Freedom

“We are set irrevocably, I believe, on a path that will take us to the stars—unless in some monstrous capitulation to stupidity and greed, we destroy ourselves first.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Source: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 25, “The Amniotic Universe” (p. 368)

Star , Stupidity

“So far, only the judicial branch of the government has evinced this quality of leadership. If the executive and legislative branches of the government were as concerned about the protection of our citizenship rights as the federal courts have been, then the transition from a segregated to an integrated society would be infinitely smoother. But we so often look to Washington in vain for this concern. In the midst of the tragic breakdown of law and order, the executive branch of the government is all too silent and apathetic. In the midst of the desperate need for civil rights legislation, the legislative branch of the government is all too stagnant and hypocritical. This dearth of positive leadership from the federal government is not confined to one particular political party. Both political parties have betrayed the cause of justice. The Democrats have betrayed it by capitulating to the prejudices and undemocratic practices of the southern Dixiecrats. The Republicans have betrayed it by capitulating to the blatant hypocrisy of right wing, reactionary northerners. These men so often have a high blood pressure of words and an anemia of deeds.”

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

1950s, Give Us the Ballot (1957)

Justice , Law , Men

“I must really say that he is a veteran Communist, this Herr Josip Broz, a consistent man. Unfortunately he is our enemy. He really has earned his title of Marshal. When we catch him we shall do him in at once; you can be sure of that; he is our enemy. But I wish we had a dozen Titos in Germany… The man had nothing at all. He was between the Russians, the British and Americans for a ride and to shit on them in the most comical way. He is a Moscow man … He has never capitulated.”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994).
Undated

Way

“Everything about this border wall situation — Trump’s extralegal tantrum, the craven capitulation of McConnell and the Republicans, the shameless lies, the howling mobs, all of it — is a disgrace… Most disgraceful of all is the idea of the wall itself: a monument to vicious nativism, white nationalism, toxic masculinity and perfect cowardice.”

William Rivers Pitt (1971) writer

"Can Trump’s Wall Survive His Fake Emergency?" Truthout (16 February 2019)

Perfection , Idea

“Intercourse is commonly written about and comprehended as a form of possession or an act of possession in which, during which, because of which, a man inhabits a woman, physically covering her and overwhelming her and at the same time penetrating her; and this physical relational - over her and inside her 0 is his possession oh her. He has her, or when is is done, he has had her. By thrusting into her, he takes her over. His thrusting into her is taken to be her capitulation to him as a conqueror; it is a physical surrender of herself to him; he occupies and rules her, expresses his elemental dominance over her, by his possession of her in the fuck.”

Andrea Dworkin book Intercourse

Source: Intercourse (1987), Chapter Five, "Possession"

Time , Relation ships

“I know that there are those that are saying to the individuals who are involved in the freedom struggle, slow up for a while; you’re pushing things too fast. Or they may say, adopt a policy of moderation. Well, if moderation means moving on toward the goal of justice, with wise restraint and calm reasonableness, then moderation is a great virtue, which all men of good will must seek to achieve during this tense period of transition. But if moderation means slowing up in the move for freedom, capitulating to the undemocratic practices of the guardians of a deadening status quo, then moderation is a tragic vice which all men of good will must condemn. The fact is, we can’t afford to slow up. We have our self-respect to maintain, but even more than that, because of our love for democracy and because of our love for America, we can’t afford to slow up.”

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

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Democracy , Justice , Freedom , Self-confidence

“Forgiveness without justice is capitulation and weakness.”

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow (1946) primate of the Russian Orthodox Church

"Распятие Кирилла на кресте" (In Russian. "Crucifixion of Kirill on the cross") https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2022/03/18/raspiatie-kirilla-na-kreste, Novaya Gazeta, 18 March 2022

Justice , Forgiveness