Quotes about combat

A collection of quotes on the topic of combat, war, use, other.

Quotes about combat

“When seeing today the defendants on the dock, don’t believe them to be the old Combat Group Peiper. All my old friends and comrades have gone before! These people who plead for mitigating circumstances are only the negative selection! The real outfit is waiting for me in Valhalla!”

Joachim Peiper (1915–1976) SS officer

Letter to Willis Everett, July 14, 1946. Parker, Hitler's Warrior, chapter 14, citing Everett Papers in note 32.

People, Waiting

“All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

A Means for Furthering Peace (1905)
Context: It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world!... Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discover's keen searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the heartless strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.

Past

“Endurance is composed of four attributes: eagerness, fear, piety and anticipation (of death). so whoever is eager for Paradise will ignore temptations; whoever fears the fire of Hell will abstain from sins; whoever practices piety will easily bear the difficulties of life and whoever anticipates death will hasten towards good deeds.
Conviction has also four aspects to guard oneself against infatuations of sin; to search for explanation of truth through knowledge; to gain lessons from instructive things and to follow the precedent of the past people, because whoever wants to guard himself against vices and sins will have to search for the true causes of infatuation and the true ways of combating them out and to find those true ways one has to search them with the help of knowledge, whoever gets fully acquainted with various branches of knowledge will take lessons from life and whoever tries to take lessons from life is actually engaged in the study of the causes of rise and fall of previous civilizations.
Justice also has four aspects depth of understanding, profoundness of knowledge, fairness of judgment and dearness of mind; because whoever tries his best to understand a problem will have to study it, whoever has the practice of studying the subject he is to deal with, will develop a clear mind and will always come to correct decisions, whoever tries to achieve all this will have to develop ample patience and forbearance and whoever does this has done justice to the cause of religion and has led a life of good repute and fame.
Jihad is divided into four branches: to persuade people to be obedient to Allah; to prohibit them from sin and vice; to struggle (in the cause of Allah) sincerely and firmly on all occasions and to detest the vicious. Whoever persuades people to obey the orders of Allah provides strength to the believers; whoever dissuades them from vices and sins humiliates the unbelievers; whoever struggles on all occasions discharges all his obligations and whoever detests the vicious only for the sake of Allah, then Allah will take revenge on his enemies and will be pleased with Him on the Day of Judgment.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Life, Death, People, Truth

“Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one's sleeve can have the same effect. There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence. Legitimate self-confidence is a winner. The true test of self-confidence is the courage to be open—to welcome change and new ideas regardless of their source. Self-confident people aren't afraid to have their views challenged. They relish the intellectual combat that enriches ideas.”

Jack Welch (1935) American executive: General Electric CEO

Source: Jack: Straight from the Gut (2001), Ch. 24.

People, Confidence, Idea, Courage

“He is the best tactician and combat commander we have.”

Erich von Manstein (1887–1973) German general

Wolfram von Richthofen

“You, why are you so afraid of war and slaughter? Even if all the rest of us drop and die around you, grappling for the ships, you’d run no risk of death: you lack the heart to last it out in combat—coward!”

Homér Iliad

Source: The Iliad

Death, War, Heart

“If we pick a fight, then we're just as bad as them. Combat should be used just to help people who can't defend themselves, period."
"Well, if I don't fight back and they pound on me, then I'm one of the people I should be defending.”

Tamora Pierce book Page

Source: Page

People, Help, Fight

“Life did not take over the world by combat,
but by networking.”

Lynn Margulis (1938–2011) American evolutionary biologist

Source: Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution

Life, World

“Since the number of men is large but the earthly realm is not inexhaustible, one man can no longer profit from the labour of twenty. Moderation, contentment, and frugality must become the general morals of mankind. […] The whole earth becomes a garden, and nature has at last completed her day’s work here below, bringing permanent enlightenment, peace, and felicity together with the greatest possible number of men : she has anointed every man as his own judge, priest, and king; has turned the often-ridiculed tale of the golden age, mankind’s favorite idea of old, into a reality by discreetly removing the eternal inequality of wealth, which has been ineffectively combated by all lawgivers and has always has crept back in, and which is the source of the decay of all nations, and the root of servitude, tyranny, and disunity among men, of venality and moral corruption, making it forever impossible through the excessive growth of the human population.”

Adam Weishaupt (1748–1830) German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati

Philosophy degree (1783), in: The Secret School of Wisdom: The Authentic Rituals and Doctrinces of the Illuminati, ed. by Josef Wäges and Reinhard Markner, Lewis Masonic 2015, p. 364.

Men, Age, Peace, Idea

“There is no man, let him be aware of it or not, who is not a combatant in this hot contest; no one who does not take an active part in the responsibility of the defeat or victory. The prisoner in his chains and the king on his throne, the poor and the rich, the healthy and the infirm, the wise and the ignorant, the captive and the free, the old man and the child, the civilized and the savage, share equally in the combat. Every word that is pronounced, is either inspired by God or by the world, and necessarily proclaims, implicitly or explicitly, but always clearly, the glory of the one or the triumph of the other. In this singular warfare we all fight through forced enlistment; here the system of substitutes or volunteers finds no place. In it is unknown the exception of sex or age; here no attention is paid to him who says, I am the son of a poor widow; nor to the mother of the paralytic, nor to the wife of the cripple. In this warfare all men born of woman are soldiers.
And don’t tell me you don’t wish to fight; for the moment you tell me that, you are already fighting; nor that you don’t know which side to join, for while you are saying that, you have already joined a side; nor that you wish to remain neutral; for while you are thinking to be so, you are so no longer; nor that you want to be indifferent; for I will laugh at you, because on pronouncing that word you have chosen your party. Don’t tire yourself in seeking a place of security against the chances of war, for you tire yourself in vain; that war is extended as far as space, and prolonged through all time. In eternity alone, the country of the just, can you find rest, because there alone there is no combat. But do not imagine, however, that the gates of eternity shall be opened for you, unless you first show the wounds you bear; those gates are only opened for those who gloriously fought here the battles of the Lord, and were, like the Lord, crucified.”

Juan Donoso Cortés (1809–1853) Spanish author, political theorist and diplomat

Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism (1879)

Men, God, War, Age

“I came into a place void of all light,
which bellows like the sea in tempest,
when it is combated by warring winds.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto V, lines 28–30 (tr. Charles S. Singleton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

War, Light, Sea

“Our war with the capitalist world will be a just and progressive war. The Red Army will act decisively, seeking complete defeat and destruction of the enemy, transferring combat operations to the territory of the enemy.”

Lev Mekhlis (1889–1953) Soviet politician

Speech to Red Army personnel, 13 May 1940
Source: http://www.warmech.ru/1941war/sher_4.html

War, World, Decision

“The terrible situation of the country makes my mind restless and I cannot keep silent. Meaningless ritual keep the Hindus divided in hundred sects. Sop we are suffering from series of defeats. We are tired and worn-out by the fortunes by the internal external enemies. The Muslims are united in religion and rituals. The Bengali Muslims the South Indian Muslims and even the Muslims outside India-all are united. They always stand untied in face of danger. The broken and divided Hindus will not be able to combat them. Days are coming when the Hindus will be again humiliated by the Muslims. "You are a mother of children, one day you will die, passing the future of Hindus society on the weak shoulders of your children, but think about their future."”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

From the letter to Hemantabala Sarkar, written on 16the October, 1933, quoted in Bengali weekly `Swastika', 21-6-1999 http://hindusamhati.blogspot.com/2013/05/thoughts-of-rabindranath-tagore-on.html

Children, Religion, Thinking, Suffering

“The life of the enemy. Whoever lives for the sake of combating an enemy has an interest in the enemy's staying alive.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Life

“Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combatting the forces of evil… prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon…”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

alt.fan.pratchett (30 May 1998) http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.pratchett/msg/31c9fbae84e0fc8c Usenet

Death, Way, Evil

“More than any other nation, the United States has been almost constantly involved in armed conflict and, through military alliances, has used war as a means of resolving international and local disputes. Since the birth of the United Nations, we have seen American forces involved in combat in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Grenada, Haiti, Iraq, Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Serbia, Somalia, and Vietnam, and more recently with lethal attacks in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and other sovereign nations. There were no “boots on the ground” in some of these countries; instead we have used high-altitude bombers or remote-control drones. In these cases we rarely acknowledge the tremendous loss of life and prolonged suffering among people in the combat zones, even after our involvement in the conflict is ended.”

Jimmy Carter book A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Source: A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Life, War, People, Birth

“The longer the trial to which God subjects you, the greater the goodness in comforting you during the time of the trial and in the exaltation after the combat.”

Padre Pio (1887–1968) Italian saint, priest, stigmatist and mystic

God, Time

“A doubtful balance is made between truth and pleasure, and… the knowledge of one and the feeling of the other stir up a combat the success of which is very uncertain, since, in order to judge of it, it would be necessary to know all that passes in the innermost spirit of the man, of which man himself is scarcely ever conscious.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

The Art of Persuasion

Pleasure, Truth, Feeling, Knowledge

“Once centenarian teacher who had the body of an adolescent told me he had studied martial arts. "Me, too," I answered. We were in Notre Dame, and he said, "Attack me." I put myself in a combat position, and he moved his left hand in such an incredibly beautiful way that while I looked at it, fascinated, he gave me a big slap. "Beauty is the most dangerous weapon," he warned. It took me a long time to understand. He used a secret Chinese practice, which consists of drawing a snake in the air with your hand to distract the enemy. And that is how beauty is: the most awful weapon.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy (2010)

Secret, Beauty, Art, Way

“From his (Karna’s) low caste came rejection, came every disadvantage; but he always played and fought fair! So his life, though a series of disappointments and defeats to the very end – his slaying by Arjuna– appealed to me as a boy as the greatest of triumphs. I still think of the tournament where Arjuna had been victor, and then of Karna coming as a stranger to challenge him. Questioned of name and birth, he replies, “I am my own ancestor! You do not ask the might Ganges from which of its many springs it comes: its own flow justifies itself, so shall my deeds me! [Further he wrote :] Like that of my boyhood’s hero Karna, my life has been ever one of combat and must be to the last. It is not for man to complain of circumstances, but bravely to accept, to confront, and to dominate them.”

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist

The character of Karna in Mahabharata influenced him deeply.
Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose in Vijayaprasara

Life, Disappointment, Spring, Boy

“(Sports) provides a wonderful opportunity for initiating acquaintance. Regardless of the degree of our civilization, people still thrill to physical combat and admire the man who excels. He who is of proven merit in the field of major sports has shown to all that he is possessed of strength, vigor, stamina, and courage. The great majority of people want to know such a man…How well I have taken advantage of the football reputation it was my good fortune to gain is for others to judge, but I personally am very thankful for the whole experience and the fun and friends it has brought me.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Journal entry (February 22, 1942)

People, Courage, Sport, Football

“This may surprise you, because it surprised me when I found out, but the single biggest thing that an individual can do to combat climate change is to stop eating animals. Because of the huge, huge carbon footprint of animal agriculture. I was shocked to find out that animal agriculture directly or indirectly accounts for 14.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions, compared to all transportation – every ship, car, truck, plane on the planet only accounts for 13%. Less than animal agriculture. So most people think that buying a Prius is the answer, and it’s certainly not wrong, but it’s not the biggest agent of climate change.”

James Cameron (1954) Canadian film director

From an " Ask Me Anything https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/22uz4m/i_am_james_cameron_ama/" session on Reddit; as quoted in "Director James Cameron on Vegan Diet: Like I've Set the Clock Back 15 Years", in Ecorazzi (12 April 2014) http://www.ecorazzi.com/2014/04/12/director-james-cameron-on-vegan-diet-like-ive-set-the-clock-back-15-years/

People, Cars, Thinking, Change

“Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism; it is an important part of promoting peace.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)

Peace, Problem, Parting

“If there were just one possibility—either to do the good or to combat evil—man would have to opt for the first.”

Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) Swiss doctor and mystic

Source: Lumina and New Lumina (1969), p. 36

Evil

“I mean the powerful influence which the interesting scenes of the Revolution had upon the passions of the people as distinguished from their judgment. By this influence, the jealousy, envy, and avarice incident to our nature and so common to a state of peace, prosperity, and conscious strength, were for the time in a great measure smothered and rendered inactive, while the deep-rooted principles of hate, and the powerful motive of revenge, instead of being turned against each other, were directed exclusively against the British nation. And thus, from the force of circumstances, the basest principles of our nature, were either made to lie dormant, or to become the active agents in the advancement of the noblest cause — that of establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty. But this state of feeling must fade, is fading, has faded, with the circumstances that produced it. I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but that, like everything else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read; but even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even then they cannot be so universally known nor so vividly felt as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family — a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related — a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done — the leveling of its walls. They are gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-restless hurricane has swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few more ruder storms, then to sink and be no more. They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now that they have crumbled away that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)

Hate, People, Lie, World

“Engage in combat fully determined to die and you will be alive; wish to survive in the battle and you will surely meet death.”

Uesugi Kenshin (1530–1578) Japanese daimyo

Quoted in Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro; Zen Buddhism and Its Influence on Japanese Culture (1970); p. 188 Cited in Wisdom from Early Japan, The Samurai Archives, 2006-11-07 http://www.samurai-archives.com/wisdom.html, Cited in [Storry, Richard, October 11, 1979, Cult of the Sword, The New York Review of Books, 26, 15, ISSN 0028-7504, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=7675, 2006-11-07] (Review of several books on the samurai of Japan.) Alternative: "Those who cling to life die, and those who defy death live."

Death

“Our opinion at the time was that National Socialism and the Communism of the Soviet Republic were sort of 'siblings.’ And it may also be that this attitude was peculiar especially to an Austrian SS member. For his enemies at that time were not Social Democracy and Communism; these were combated by the Austrian aristocracy as much as he himself was;…”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

False Gods: The Jerusalem Memoirs, London: UK, Black House Publishing (2015) p. 75

Democracy, Communication, Time, Siblings

“The U. S. military has performed valiantly and brilliantly in Iraq. Our troops have done all that we have asked them to do and more. But no amount of American soldiers can solve the political differences at the heart of somebody else's civil war, nor settle the grievances in the hearts of the combatants.
It is my firm belief that the responsible course of action - for the United States, for Iraq, and for our troops - is to oppose this reckless escalation and to pursue a new policy. This policy that I've laid out is consistent with what I have advocated for well over a year, with many of the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, and with what the American people demanded in the November election.
When it comes to the war in Iraq, the time for promises and assurances, for waiting and patience, is over. Too many lives have been lost and too many billions have been spent for us to trust the President on another tried and failed policy opposed by generals and experts, Democrats and Republicans, Americans and many of the Iraqis themselves.
It is time for us to fundamentally change our policy. It is time to give Iraqis their country back. And it is time to refocus America's efforts on the challenges we face at home and the wider struggle against terror yet to be won.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Floor Statement on Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007 (30 January 2007)
2007

War, People, Home, Effort

“Non-combatant, n. A dead Quaker.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Dead

“Thanks for the information
Never give a sucker an even break
When he's breaking through
To a new level of consciousness
There always seems to be more
Obstacles in the way
Thanks for the information I know
It's only a combat zone
Thanks for the memory,
I'll just have
To carry on on my own.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Thanks For the Information
Song lyrics, No Guru (1986)

Way, Memory

“What is now combated is the position that secession is consistent with the Constitution — is lawful and peaceful. It is not contended that there is any express law for it, and nothing should ever be implied as law which leads to unjust or absurd consequences. The nation purchased with money the countries out of which several of these States were formed. Is it just that they shall go off without leave and without refunding? The nation paid very large sums (in the aggregate, I believe, nearly a hundred millions) to relieve Florida of the aboriginal tribes. Is it just that she shall now be off without consent or without making any return? The nation is now in debt for money applied to the benefit of these so-called seceding States in common with the rest. Is it just either that creditors shall go unpaid or the remaining States pay the whole? A part of the present national debt was contracted to pay the old debts of Texas. Is it just that she shall leave and pay no part of this herself?”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

Money, Peace, Law, Parting

“I regard free speech as a prerequisite to a civilized society, because freedom of speech means that you can have combat with words. That's what it means. It doesn't mean that people can happily and gently exchange opinions. It means that we can engage in combat with words, in the battleground of ideas. And the reason that that's acceptable, and why it's acceptable that people's feelings get hurt during that combat, is that the combat of ideas is far preferable to actual combat.”

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

Maps of Meaning

People, Feeling, Idea, Freedom

“To all of you who served in Iraq, we saw your heroism in pushing out a dictator whose brutality must be condemned, never praised. In defeating an insurgency. In giving the Iraqi people a chance. And no matter what has happened since, your valor in the deserts, in fierce urban combat, will be honored in the annals of military history.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Disabled American Veterans Convention (August 2016)

People, History, Chance

“What is bravery, and what is bravado? Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price.”

Marie Colvin (1956–2012) American journalist, war reporter

Quoted in The Economist, 25 Feb 2012, p. 63

“On valour's side the odds of combat lie,
The brave live glorious, or lamented die;
The wretch who trembles in the field of fame,
Meets death, and worse than death, eternal shame.”

Homér Iliad

XV. 563–564 (tr. Alexander Pope).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Death, Lie

“Religion has two principal enemies, fanaticism and infidelity, or that which is called atheism. The first requires to be combated by reason and morality, the other by natural philosophy.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1790s, Discourse to the Theophilanthropists (1798)

Religion, Nature

“There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution. But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism — government. Lord Acton said power corrupts. Surely then, if this is true, the more power we give the government the more corrupt it will become. And if we give it the power to confiscate our arms we also give up the ultimate means to combat that corrupt power. In doing so we can only assure that we will eventually be totally subject to it. When dictators come to power, the first thing they do is take away the people's weapons. It makes it so much easier for the secret police to operate, it makes it so much easier to force the will of the ruler upon the ruled.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Column published in Guns and Ammo (1 September 1975)
1970s

People, Secret, Failure, Dependency

“Economy and ideology. The claim (presented as an essential postulate of historical materialism) that every fluctuation of politics and ideology can be presented and expounded as an immediate expression of the structure, must be contested in theory as primitive infantilism, and combated in practice with the authentic testimony of Marx, the author of concrete political and historical works.”

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

Selections from the Prison Notebooks (1971).

“There is nothing more useful in combating the tragedy of life than to struggle with all your soul on behalf of the good.”

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

Other

Courageous, Life, Soul

“Combating climate change cannot be the work of governments alone. Citizens, especially the next generation, you have to keep raising your voices, because you deserve to live your lives in a world that is cleaner and that is healthier and that is sustainable. But that is not going to happen unless you are heard. It is in the nature of things, it is in the nature of the world that those of us who start getting gray hair are a little set in our ways, that interests are entrenched”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Queensland University Address (November 2014)
Context: As we develop, as we focus on our econ, we cannot forget the need to lead on the global fight against climate change. [... ] Here in the Asia Pacific, nobody has more at stake when it comes to thinking about and then acting on climate change. Here, a climate that increases in temperature will mean more extreme and frequent storms, more flooding, rising seas that submerge Pacific islands. Here in Australia, it means longer droughts, more wildfires. The incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef is threated. Worldwide, this past summer was the hottest on record. No nation is immune, and every nation has a responsibility to do its part. [... ] We are mindful of the great work that still has to be done on this issue. But let me say, particularly again to the young people here: Combating climate change cannot be the work of governments alone. Citizens, especially the next generation, you have to keep raising your voices, because you deserve to live your lives in a world that is cleaner and that is healthier and that is sustainable. But that is not going to happen unless you are heard. It is in the nature of things, it is in the nature of the world that those of us who start getting gray hair are a little set in our ways, that interests are entrenched -- not because people are bad people, it’s just that’s how we’ve been doing things. And we make investments, and companies start depending on certain energy sources, and change is uncomfortable and difficult. And that’s why it’s so important for the next generation to be able to step and say, no, it doesn’t have to be this way. You have the power to imagine a new future in a way that some of the older folks don’t always have.

World, Way, Nature, Change

“The wide difference between the two characters, the slowness and want of energy of the Spartans as contrasted with the dash and enterprise of their opponents, proved of the greatest service, especially to a maritime empire like Athens. Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans, who were most like the Athenians in character, and also most successful in combating them.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book VIII, 8.96-[5]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VIII

Success

“By day certainly the combatants have a clearer notion, though even then by no means of all that takes place, no one knowing much of anything that does not does not go on in his own immediate neighborhood; but in a night engagement ( and this was the only one that occurred between great armies during the war) how could anyone know anything for certain?”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book VII, 7.44-[1]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VII

War, Night

“This war has descended upon mankind as a curse and a warning. It is a curse inasmuch as it is brutalizing man on a scale hitherto unknown. All distinctions between combatants and noncombatants have been abolished. No one and nothing is to be spared. Lying has been reduced to an art.”

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

1940s, To Every Briton (1940)
Context: This war has descended upon mankind as a curse and a warning. It is a curse inasmuch as it is brutalizing man on a scale hitherto unknown. All distinctions between combatants and noncombatants have been abolished. No one and nothing is to be spared. Lying has been reduced to an art. Britain was to defend small nationalities. One by one they have vanished, at least for the time being. It is also a warning. It is a warning that, if nobody reads the writing on the wall, man will be reduced to the state of the beast, whom he is shaming by his manners. I read the writing when the hostilities broke out. But I had not the courage to say the word. God has given me the courage to say it before it is too late.

War, Art, Lying

“Since the revolution, I have done all that depended upon me to return happiness to my country and to ensure liberty for my fellow citizens. Forced to combat internal and external enemies of the French Republic, I made war with courage, honor and loyalty. I have never strayed from the rules of justice with my enemies as much as was in my power I sought to soften the horrors of war, to spare the blood of men.”

Toussaint Louverture (1743–1803) Leader of the Haitian Revolution

Courage, Justice, Dependency, Country

“I TOLD MY NEW FRIENDS I was allergic to dismemberment. They just laughed and herded me toward the combat arena. This is why I don’t like making new friends.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

“I'm not a. I have no male pride for you to trick me with, and I am not interested in single combat. That is entirely a weakness of your sex, not mine. I am a woman. I will use any weapon and all weapons to get what I want.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Sex

“You know how hard it is to feel like an extreme falcon-headed combat machine when somebody calls you "chicken man"?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Feeling

“once you laugh at you own weaknesses, you can move forward. Comedy breaks down walls. It opens up people. If you're good, you can fill up those openings with something positive. Mabye…….. combat some the ugliness in the world.”

Goldie Hawn (1945) American actress, film director, and producer.

People, World

“We Deveauxs preferred to talk you to death, rather than face you in physical combat.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Name of the Star

Death

“You teach combat, I guess.”

Aphros threw up his hands in exasperation. “Why does everyone assume that?”

Leo glanced at the massive sword on the fish-guy’s back. “Uh, I don’t know.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Guy, Fish

“My sister, with her ratty red-highlighted hair and her linen pajamas and her combat boots—how could she possibly worry about being possessed by a goddess? What goddess would want her, except the goddess of chewing gum?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Sister

“A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.
It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Other Lyrics
Source: "The Favorite Game"
Context: Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.
It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple.

“Conflict is inevitable but combat is optional.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: When God Whispers Your Name

“Boys who spent their weekends making banana nut muffins did not, as a rule, excel in the art of hand-to-hand combat.”

David Sedaris book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

Source: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

Art, Boy

“Percy looked at his friends. "I'm getting tired of this guy's shirt."
"Combat time?" Piper grabbed her horn of plenty.
"I hate wonder bread," Jason said.
Together, they charged.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Hate, Guy, Time

“You wouldn’t be normal if you were never afraid. Even the bravest men experience fear. One of the biggest jobs we all face in combat is to overcome fear.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

Men, Fear

“The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat.”

Richard Marcinko book Rogue Warrior

Source: Rogue Warrior

Training

“If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1800s, First Inaugural Address (1801)
Source: The Inaugural Speeches and Messages of Thomas Jefferson, Esq.: Late President of the United States: Together with the Inaugural Speech of James Madison, Esq. ...

Error, Change

“He could do this. He'd survived boot camp. He'd survived combat and the harsh weather of Afghanistan. He could survive broccoli. Probably.”

Shannon Stacey (1972) american writer

Source: Yours to Keep

Weather

“All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters, either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital role. Don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain.”

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

Speech to the Third Army (1944)

Thinking

“Let me offer my condolences to the Khan family for their sacrifice, as they are now an American Gold Star Family. Their son and I share an unbreakable bond. We both served our nation and, along with three other generations in my family, took the oath to support and defend our Constitution and served in combat zones.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Open letter to Khizr M. Khan (31 July 2016)

Family, Star, Support

“Life on earth is a hand-to-hand mortal combat… between the law of love and the law of hate.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Letter (1881), as quoted in The Conscience of Worms and the Cowardice of Lions : Cuban Politics and Culture in an American Context (1993) by Irving Louis Horowit, p. 11

Love, Life, Hate, Law

“Today war seems to have undergone a change of meaning, insofar as it is not a war of religion but a war of interests, not a war of conflicting cultures or civilizations but a war of national areas, not a war of human beings but a technical struggle of machines one against another and all against the non–combatant population.”

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher

Man in the Modern Age (1933)

War, Religion, Change

“Surely it is not every one who is chosen to combat a religion or a morality of two thousand years’ standing, fist within and then without himself.”

Oscar Levy (1867–1946) German physician and writer

Editorial Note, Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (1909), vol. 1, p. ix.

Religion

“I found it interesting Mr. Khan, that you and your wife, an American Gold Star family, would take the stage to support a sitting president and one desiring to be president, who had abandoned Americans in a combat zone and lied about it.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Open letter to Khizr M. Khan (31 July 2016)

Family, Star, Support

“Communists, when in control of a nation, have murdered more than 3.6 times the number of people killed in combat in all wars, including the two world wars.”

Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 99

War, People, World, Time

“Great contest follows, and much learned dust
Involves the combatants; each claiming truth,
And truth disclaiming both.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 161.

Truth, Learning

“You have to fight that much harder, and not in a whiny or combatant way,” she said. “You just have to be that much smarter, that much more organized, on your toes, always, and you have to dress that much more professionally. A lot more thought has to go into everything you do.”

Karin Housley (1964) American politician

The Thoroughly Modern Marriage of Phil and Karin Housley http://buffalonews.com/2017/11/23/the-thoroughly-modern-marriage-of-phil-and-karin-housley (November 23, 2017)

Way, Fight

“A proper measure of democracy should be put into effect in the army, chiefly by abolishing the feudal practice of bullying and beating and by having officers and men share weal and woe. Once this is done, unity will be achieved between officers and men, the combat effectiveness of the army will be greatly increased, and there will be no doubt of our ability to sustain the long, cruel war.”

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

On Protracted Warfare (1938)
Original: (zh-CN) 军队应实行一定限度的民主化，主要地是废除封建主义的打骂制度和官兵生活同甘苦。这样一来，官兵一致的目的就达到了，军队就增加了绝大的战斗力，长期的残酷的战争就不患不能支持。

Men, War, Democracy

“The tradition of having government-funded military schools for men is as well rooted in the traditions of this country as the tradition of sending only men into military combat. The people may decide to change the one tradition, like the other, through democratic processes; but the assertion that either tradition has been unconstitutional through the centuries is not law, but politics-smuggled-into-law.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

On gender equality: United States v. Virginia (1996) (dissenting).
1990s

Men, People, School, Law

“Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Conference on domestic violence https://web.archive.org/web/20010726225357/http://clinton3.nara.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/generalspeeches/1998/19981117.html in San Salvador, El Salvador (17 November 1998). White House years (1993–2000)

Women, War, Children, Home

“What delight will it afford to renew the sweet counsel we have taken together, to recount the toils, the combats, and the labor of the way, and to approach, not the house, but the throne of God, in company, in order to join in the symphonies of heavenly voices, and lose ourselves amidst the splendors and fruitions of the beatific vision.”

Robert Hall (1764–1831) British Baptist pastor

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 306.

God, Way, Housing

“The House of Representatives, in some respects, I think, is the most peculiar assemblage in the world, and only a man who has had long experience there can fully know its idiosyncrasies. It is true we engage in fierce combat, we are often intense partisans, sometimes we are unfair, not infrequently unjust, brutal at times, and yet I venture to say that, taken as a whole, the House is sound at heart; nowhere else will you find such a ready appreciation of merit and character, in few gatherings of equal size is there so little jealousy and envy.
The House must be considerate of the feelings of its Members; there is a certain courtesy that has to be observed; a man may be voted a bore or shunned as a pest, and yet he must be accorded the rights to which he is entitled by virtue of being a representative of the people. On the other hand, a man may be universally popular, a good fellow, amusing and yet with these engaging qualities never get far. The men who have led the House, whose names have become a splendid tradition to their successors, have gained prominence not through luck or by mere accident. They have had ability, at least in some degree; but more than that, they have had character.”

Joseph Gurney Cannon (1836–1926) American politician

Quoted in L. White Busby, Uncle Joe Cannon: The Story of a Pioneer American (1937), p. 260

Men, People, World, Jealousy

“Our Party’s Songun-based revolutionary leadership, Songun-based politics, is a revolutionary mode of leadership and socialist mode of politics that gives top priority to military affairs, and defends the country, the revolution and socialism and dynamically pushes ahead with overall socialist construction by dint of the revolutionary mettle and combat capabilities of the People’s Army.”

Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

"The Songun-based revolutionary line is a great revolutionary line of our era and an ever-victorious banner of our revolution", address to the senior officials of the Central Committee of the Worker's Party (29 January 2003)

People, Country

“Once war consisted of individual combats between armed men. Later it was waged between lines of men in opposing trenches. Now it is organized slaughter of whole populations.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

"What is War?" (1924)

Men, War

“For as long as possible, the learned collegium has tried to defend its integrity against the close combat of ideologico-critical exposures. Do not unmask, lest you yourself be unmasked could be the unspoken rule. It is no accident that the great representatives of critique—the French moralists, the Encyclopedists, the socialists, and especially Heine, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud—remain outsiders to the scholarly domain. In all of them there is a satirical, polemical component that can scarcely be hidden under the mask of scholarly respectability. These signals of a holy nonseriousness, which remains one of the sure indexes of truth, can be employed as signposts to the critique of cynical reason.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 18

Truth, Learning

“Those that will combat use and custom by the strict rules of grammar do but jest.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Attributed

“I credit my plant-based diet with giving me the energy and stamina to help carry my teams to four NBA championship wins. … Veganism has become a transformative part of my life and I have made it my mission to share the power of plant-based eating with the world. … Vegan eating is not just a slam dunk for human health; it’s also the most effective way to combat climate change, according to a 2010 report by the United Nations. … going vegan is one of the best things a person can do for their health, for animals, and for the environment.”

John Salley (1964) American basketball player

Letter to Michelle Obama, in “NBA Champ Challenges FLOTUS to Take PETA’s Vegan Pledge,” in PETA.org (29 December 2015) https://www.peta.org/blog/nba-champ-challenges-flotus-to-take-petas-vegan-pledge/.

Life, Health, World, Way

“Sadly, it had become clear in recent years that the tribal culture, through which we sought to build small teams capable of enduring combat, had become distorted, misinterpreted and abused. And the evidence of that was brought home to me in a very personal, poignant and confronting way by Elizabeth Broderick.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Address at the International Women's Day Conference (2013)

Way, Home, Personality

“A relationship with no combat in it is dull, and a relationship with too much combat in it is toxic. What is desirable is a relationship with a certain optimum of conflict.”

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist

Source: Mind and Nature, a necessary unity, 1988, p. 56

“There is only one purpose in hand-to-hand combat, and that is to kill. Never face an enemy with the idea of knocking him out. The chances are extremely good that he will kill you.”

William Powell (author) book The Anarchist Cookbook

Source: The Anarchist Cookbook (1971), Chapter Three: "Natural, Nonlethal, and Lethal Weapons", p. 79.

Idea, Chance

“It is impossible to overstate the significance of this. This is the last citadel for women in our Army. The bias towards officers with an arms corps affiliation in choosing senior leaders has some justification. Close combat is the core business of the Army. But women are already ‘in combat’ due to the changing character of war. Formal recognition of this removes the last defence of those who are resistant to the widest employment of women in the Army, and by extension their promotion to the most senior ranks. It is quite conceivable now that a woman will serve as the Chief of the Army in light of this decision.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Address at the International Women's Day Conference (2013)

Women, War, Business, Decision

“Ways to combat stress, such as playing golf before a conference call or taking a break on the beach during inventory, are essential.”

Ricardo Semler book The Seven-Day Weekend

The Seven-Day Weekend (2004)

Way

“The Communist leaders seem to have misunderstood the universal lesson of life that man's greatest enemy is inertia and that the mainspring of action to combat inertia is not force but the opportunity for self- improvement. Marx and Engels insisted that such an attitude is selfish and "non-social," but the plain fact is that a worker finds it difficult to work harder in order to fill the stomachs of "society" when the fruits of his labor do not first take care of himself and his family.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Life, Family, Universe, Selfishness

“Hayek was in many respects a philosophical idealist, in that he believed that ideas rule the world. It was the idea of constructivism, he thought, that has such destructive consequences. If he could combat this idea, then much good would result.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

World, Idea

“Yesterday I had a violent run-in with M. Eugene Manet on the subject of Seurat and Paul Signac. The latter was present, as was Guillaumin. You may be sure I rated Manet roundly. - Which will not please Renoir. - But anyhow, this is the point, I explained to M. Manet, who probably didn't understand anything I said, that Seurat has something new to contribute which these gentlemen, despite their talent, are unable to appreciate, that I am personally convinced of the progressive character of his art and certain that in time it will yield extraordinary results. Besides I am not concerned with the appreciation of artists, no matter whom. I do not accept the snobbish judgments of "romantic impressionists" to whose interest it is to combat new tendencies. I accept the challenge, that's all..”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

Quote of Camille Pissarro, in a letter, Paris March 1886, to his son Lucien; in Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, pp. 73-74
1880's

Art, Understanding, Time, Personality

“I opposed the war in Iraq because I did not believe it was in our national security interest, and I still don't. What we did was akin to taking a baseball bat to a beehive. Our primary security threat right now is terrorism ---and by doing what we did in Iraq, we've managed to alienate a good part of the world and most of the allies whose intelligence and other help we need to combat and defeat terrorism.”

Jerry Springer (1944) American television presenter, former lawyer, politician, news presenter, actor, and musician

Democratic Veteran http://www.usndemvet.com/blog/archives/000592.html, interview with Jo Fish 06/23/03

War, World, Intelligence, Help

“"Among the types of human activity which have always played a role in history, the soldier is least subject to ressentiment. Nietzsche is right in pointing out that the priest is most exposed to this danger, though the conclusions about religious morality which he draws from this insight are inadmissible. It is true that the very requirements of his profession, quite apart from his individual or national temperament, expose the priest more than any other human type to the creeping poison of ressentiment. In principle he is not supported by secular power; indeed he affirms the fundamental weakness of such power. Yet, as the representative of a concrete institution, he is to be sharply distinguished from the homo religiosus—he is placed in the middle of party struggle. More than any other man, he is condemned to control his emotions (revenge, wrath, hatred) at least outwardly, for he must always represent the image and principle of “peacefulness.” The typical “priestly policy” of gaining victories through suffering rather than combat, or through the counterforces which the sight of the priest's suffering produces in men who believe that he unites them with God, is inspired by ressentiment. There is no trace of ressentiment in genuine martyrdom; only the false martyrdom of priestly policy is guided by it. This danger is completely avoided only when priest and homo religiosus coincide."”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Men, God, Peace, History

“Would you render the same level of support to someone who hadn't conscientiously objected, but rather instead rolled a grenade under their line officer in order to neutralize the combat capacity of their unit? … Conscientious objection removes a given piece of the cannon fodder from the fray; fragging an officer has a much more impactful effect.”

Ward Churchill (1947) Political activist

Denver Post (30 June 2005) "CU prof defends military remarks" http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_2831958 by Jim Kirksey and Amy Herdy; Churchill said in a followup conversation, "I neither advocated nor suggested to anyone, anything. I asked them to think about where they stood on things."

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