Quotes about combat

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Jadunath Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, Volume II, Fourth Edition, New Delhi, 1991, p.210-11

1980s, Interview with Nguyen Khanh (1981)

Broken Lights Letters 1951-59.

N. Gregory Mankiw, "Back In Demand" Wall Street Journal (September 21, 2009).
2000s -

Letter https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-1712 to William Roscoe (27 December 1820) <br class="br">1820s

Source: A Higher Standard (2015), p. 74

What Does 'Death to Israel' Mean to You? (2011)

Quoted in: Bryan C. Paraiso (2012) &quot; Bonifacio reveals fervor in writings http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/315489/bonifacio-reveals-fervor-in-writings.&quot; Philippine Daily Inquirer. November 30, 2012.

Given by Trenchard in 1946. As listed on Skygod.com - Great Aviation Quotes http://www.skygod.com/quotes/airpower.html

Boxing <br class="br">Source: WING CHUN HISTORY, An alternative viewpoint, by David Peterson http://wslwingchun.resolvedesign.com/wing_chun_history_an_alternative_viewpoint_by_david_peterson.htm

A 1920 private letter to Admiral Herbert Fisher, cited in " Herbert Fisher (1865-1940) A Biography" By David Ogg , E&A, London, (1948), pg. 101.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918), Last Years: Ireland (1919-1922)

A comedic musical tribute to Doctor Who made in November 2010 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9P4SxtphJ4, which was not aired for legal reasons, but &quot;leaked&quot; to the internet, and finally aired with legal clearance on Late Late Show (6 January 2011) http://geeksofdoom.com/2011/01/07/craig-fergusons-doctor-who-musical-finally-airs/The ·  Transcript of lyrics (with some minor errors), online at Forbes (1 December 2010) http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2010/12/01/craig-fergusons-doctor-who-song/ <br class="br">The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014) <br class="br">Context: In 1963 the BBC premiered a show about an alien<br>Who traveled through space and time to combat the powers of evil. … <br>The show has been running in Britain almost fifty years,<br>with many different actors in the role of The Doctor. …<br>One thing is consistent though and this is why the show is so beloved by geeks and nerds —<br>It&#x27;s all about the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism!<br>Intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism!<br>And if there is any hope for any of us in this giant explosion in which we inhabit then surely that’s it:<br>Intellect and romance triumph over brute force and cynicism! &lt;!-- Right Doctor?

&quot;The Soldier&#x27;s Faith&quot; Memorial Day address at Harvard University (30 May 1895) http://people.virginia.edu/~mmd5f/holmesfa.htm. <br class="br">1890s <br class="br">Context: As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top.

"Essay on the Biological Sciences" in Good Reading (1958)
Context: If we have been slow to develop the general concepts of ecology and conservation, we have been even more tardy in recognizing the facts of the ecology and conservation of man himself. We may hope that this will be the next major phase in the development of biology. Here and there awareness is growing that man, far from being the overlord of all creation, is himself part of nature, subject to the same cosmic forces that control all other life. Man's future welfare and probably even his survival depend upon his learning to live in harmony, rather than in combat, with these forces.

Saving Ourselves From Self-Destruction (2004)
Context: We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security — and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use.
Similarly, we must abandon the traditional approach of defining security in terms of boundaries — city walls, border patrols, racial and religious groupings. The global community has become irreversibly interdependent, with the constant movement of people, ideas, goods and resources. In such a world, we must combat terrorism with an infectious security culture that crosses borders — an inclusive approach to security based on solidarity and the value of human life. In such a world, weapons of mass destruction have no place.

Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986)
Context: Leadership is mostly a power over imagination, and never more so than in combat. The bravest man alone can only be an armed lunatic. The real strength lies in the ability to get others to do your work.

Up Front (1945)
Context: Many celebrities and self-appointed authorities have returned from quick tours of war zones (some of them getting within hearing distance of the shooting) and have put out their personal theories to batteries of photographers and reporters. Some say the American soldier is the same clean-cut young man who left his home; others say morale is sky-high at the front because everybody's face is shining for the great Cause.
They are wrong. The combat man isn't the same clean-cut lad because you don't fight a kraut by Marquess of Queensberry rules. You shoot him in the back, you blow him apart with mines, you kill or maim him the quickest and most effective way you can with the least danger to yourself. He does the same to you.
He tricks you and cheats you, and if you don't beat him at his own game you don't live to appreciate your own nobleness.
But you don't become a killer. No normal man who has smelled and associated with death ever wants to see any more of it. In fact, the only men who are even going to want to bloody noses in a fist fight after this war will be those who want people to think they were tough combat men, when they weren't. The surest way to become a pacifist is to join the infantry. <!-- p. 12 - 14

Introduction, Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1979).
Context: Consideration of motives brings up the matter of free will. I had better say once, that my project of taking animal comparisons seriously does not involve a slick mechanistic or deterministic view of freedom. Animals are not machines; one of my main concerns is to combat this notion. Actually only machines are machines.

"Galileo to Plato" in the Journal of the History of Ideas (1957).
Context: What the founders of modern science … had to do, was not criticize and to combat certain faulty theories, and to correct or to replace them by better ones. They had to do something quite different. They had to destroy one world and replace it by another. They had to reshape the framework of our intellect itself, to restate and to reform its concepts, to evolve a new approach to Being, a new concept of knowledge, and a new concept of science — and even to replace a pretty natural approach, that of common sense, by another which is not natural at all.

Source: The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Ch.21, p. 407-409
Context: The anonymous author of 'The Vestiges of Creation' published in 1844 a treatise, written in a clear and attractive style, which made the English public familiar with the leading views of Lamarck on transmutation and progression but brought no new facts or original line of argument to support those views, or to combat the principal objections which the scientific world entertained against them. No decided step in this direction was made until the publication in 1858 of two papers, one by Mr. Darwin and another by Mr. Wallace, followed in 1859 by Mr Darwin's celebrated work on 'The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, the Preservation of favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.'... both writers begin by applying to the animal and vegetable worlds the Malthusian doctrine of population, or its tendency to increase in a geometrical ratio, while food can only be made to augment even locally in an arithmetical one. There being, therefore, no room or means of subsistence for a large proportion of the plants and animals which are born into the world, a great number must annually perish.

From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (5 December 1935)
Letters
Context: You express amazement at my statement that 'civilized' men try to justify their looting, butchering and plundering by claiming that these things are done in the interests of art, progress and culture. That this simple statement of fact should cause surprize, amazes me in return. People claiming to possess superior civilization have always veneered their rapaciousness by such claims...
Your friend Mussolini is a striking modern-day example. In that speech of his I heard translated he spoke feelingly of the expansion of civilization. From time to time he has announced; 'The sword and civilization go hand in hand!' 'Wherever the Italian flag waves it will be as a symbol of civilization!' 'Africa must be brought into civilization!' It is not, of course, because of any selfish motive that he has invaded a helpless country, bombing, burning and gassing both combatants and non-combatants by the thousands. Oh, no, according to his own assertions it is all in the interests of art, culture and progress, just as the German war-lords were determined to confer the advantages of Teutonic Kultur on a benighted world, by fire and lead and steel. Civilized nations never, never have selfish motives for butchering, raping and looting; only horrid barbarians have those.

Source: Calculated Risk (1950), p. 1
Context: A soldier's life in combat is an endless series of decisions that mean success or failure, and perhaps life or death for himself or his comrades. The rifleman crawling through the rubble of a bombed-out street must decide on the best moment to escape enemy fire as he dodges from one doorway to the next. He must take a chance. The general seeking to break an enemy defense line and destroy his forces must decide just when and how to strike and precisely to what extent he dare weaken one sector of his front in order to mass overpowering strength at the main point of attack. He, too, must take a chance, although, in the stilted phraseology of military communiqués, he calls it a "calculated risk".

Source: From the Danube to the Yalu (1954), p. 25

On her portrayal of Theseus in her books, in her "Author's Note", p. 333
The King Must Die (1958)
Context: Men who hover over their opponents have no cause to evolve a science of wrestling; and Theseus is conventionally shown in combat with hulking of monstrous enemies, living by his wits. The tradition that he emulated the feats of Herakles may well embalm some ancient sneer at the over-compensation of a small assertive man. Napoleon comes to mind.
If one examines the legend in this light, a well-defined personality emerges. It is that of a light-weight; brave and aggressive, physically tough and quick; highly sexed and rather promiscuous; touchily proud, but with a feeling for the underdog; resembling Alexander in his precocious competence, gift of leadership, and romantic sense of destiny.

Comment mentioning his work on The Thin Red Line.
The Paris Review interview (1958)
Context: I am at the moment trying to write a novel, a combat novel, which, in addition to being a work which tells the truth about warfare as I saw it, would free all these young men from the horseshit which has been engrained in them by my generation. I don't think that combat has ever been written about truthfully; it has always been described in terms of bravery and cowardice. I won't even accept these words as terms of human reference any more. And anyway, hell, they don't even apply to what, in actual fact, modern warfare has become.

Hohenlinden http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=3042&amp;poem=13489, st. 7 (1802) <br class="br">Context: The combat deepens. On, ye brave,<br>Who rush to glory or the grave!<br>Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave,<br>And charge with all thy chivalry!

&quot;On Parties&quot; (23 January 1792), Papers of James Madison Vol. XIV, pp. 197-8 http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s50.html<br>Mr. Madison wished to relieve the sufferers, but was afraid of establishing a dangerous precedent, which might hereafter be perverted to the countenance of purposes very different from those of charity. He acknowledged, for his own part, that he could not undertake to lay his finger on that article in the Federal Constitution which granted a right of Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.<br> Summation of Madison&#x27;s remarks (10 January 1794) Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, 3rd Congress, 1st Session, p. 170 http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&amp;fileName=004/llac004.db&amp;recNum=82; the expense in question was for French refugees from the Haitian Revolution; this summation has been paraphrased as if a direct quote: &quot;I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.&quot; <br class="br">1790s <br class="br">Context: In every political society, parties are unavoidable. A difference of interests, real or supposed, is the most natural and fruitful source of them. The great object should be to combat the evil: 1. By establishing a political equality among all. 2. By withholding unnecessary opportunities from a few, to increase the inequality of property, by an immoderate, and especially an unmerited, accumulation of riches. 3. By the silent operation of laws, which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort. 4. By abstaining from measures which operate differently on different interests, and particularly such as favor one interest at the expence of another. 5. By making one party a check on the other, so far as the existence of parties cannot be prevented, nor their views accommodated. If this is not the language of reason, it is that of republicanism.

Source: People’s War, People’s Army (1962), pp. 4-5
Context: In August 1945, the capitulation of the Japanese forces before the and the Allied forces, put an end to the world war. The defeat of the German and Nippon fascists was the beginning of a great weakening of the capitalist system. After the great victory of the Soviet Union, many people's democracies saw the light of day. The socialist system was no longer confined within the frontiers of a single country. A new historic era was beginning in the world. In view of these changes, in Viet Nam, the Indo-chinese Communist Party and the Viet Minh called the whole Vietnamese nation to general insurrection. Everywhere, the people rose in a body. Demonstrations and displays of force followed each other uninterruptedly. In August, the Revolution broke out, neutralising the bewildered Nippon troops, overthrowing the pro-Japanese feudal authorities, and installing people's power in Hanoi and throughout the country, in the towns as well as in the countryside, in Bac Bo as well as in Nam Bo. In Hanoi, the capital, in September 2nd, the provisional gouvernment was formed around President Ho Chi Minh; it presented itself to the nation, proclaimed the independence of Viet Nam, and called on the nation to unite, to hold itself in readiness to defend the country and to oppose all attempts at imperialist aggression. The Democratic Republic of Viet Nam was born, the first people's democracy in South-east Asia. But the imperialists intended to nip the republican regime in the bud and once again transform Viet Nam into a colony. Three weeks had hardly gone by when, on September 23rd, 1945, the French Expeditionary Corps opened fire in Saigon. The whole was to be carried on for nine years at the cost of unprecedented heroism and amidst unimaginable difficulties, to end by the shining victory of our people and the crushing defeat of the aggressive imperialists at Dien Bien Phu.... Never before had there been so many foreign troops on the soil of Viet Nam. But never before either, had the Vietnamese people been so determined to rise up in combat to defend their country.

Presidency (1977–1981), Inaugural Address (1977)
Context: The world itself is now dominated by a new spirit. Peoples more numerous and more politically aware are craving and now demanding their place in the sun – not just for the benefit of their own physical condition, but for basic human rights.
The passion for freedom is on the rise. Tapping this new spirit, there can be no nobler nor more ambitious task for America to undertake on this day of a new beginning than to help shape a just and peaceful world that is truly humane.
We are a strong nation, and we will maintain strength so sufficient that it need not be proven in combat – a quiet strength based not merely on the size of an arsenal, but on the nobility of ideas.
We will be ever vigilant and never vulnerable, and we will fight our wars against poverty, ignorance, and injustice – for those are the enemies against which our forces can be honorably marshaled.
We are a purely idealistic Nation, but let no one confuse our idealism with weakness.
Because we are free we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere. Our moral sense dictates a clearcut preference for these societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights. We do not seek to intimidate, but it is clear that a world which others can dominate with impunity would be inhospitable to decency and a threat to the well-being of all people.

Also quoted in &quot;Warrior for Peace&quot; by David Talbot, in TIME (2 July 2007), p. 50 http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1635958_1635999_1634954-6,00.html <br class="br">1961, Address at the University of Washington <br class="br">Context: We increase our arms at a heavy cost, primarily to make certain that we will not have to use them. We must face up to the chance of war, if we are to maintain the peace. We must work with certain countries lacking in freedom in order to strengthen the cause of freedom. We find some who call themselves neutral who are our friends and sympathetic to us, and others who call themselves neutral who are unremittingly hostile to us. And as the most powerful defender of freedom on earth, we find ourselves unable to escape the responsibilities of freedom, and yet unable to exercise it without restraints imposed by the very freedoms we seek to protect. We cannot, as a free nation, compete with our adversaries in tactics of terror, assassination, false promises, counterfeit mobs and crises. We cannot, under the scrutiny of a free press and public, tell different stories to different audiences, foreign and domestic, friendly and hostile. We cannot abandon the slow processes of consulting with our allies to match the swift expediencies of those who merely dictate to their satellites. We can neither abandon nor control the international organization in which we now cast less than 1 percent of the vote in the General Assembly. We possess weapons of tremendous power — but they are least effective in combating the weapons most often used by freedom&#x27;s foes: subversion, infiltration, guerrilla warfare, civil disorder. We send arms to other peoples — just as we send them the ideals of democracy in which we believe — but we cannot send them the will to use those arms or to abide by those ideals. And while we believe not only in the force of arms but in the force of right and reason, we have learned that reason does not always appeal to unreasonable men — that it is not always true that &quot;a soft answer turneth away wrath&quot; — and that right does not always make might. In short, we must face problems which do not lend themselves to easy or quick or permanent solutions. And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient — that we are only 6 percent of the world&#x27;s population — that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind — that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity — and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.

As quoted in Peter Godspeed, &#x27;It is my duty&#x27; http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=462&amp;page=2, Canada National Post, September 24, 2010. <br class="br">Interviews, 2010

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back

First Report, p. 34
U.S. Navy at War, 1941-1945: Official Reports to the Secretary of the Navy (1946)

Mattachine Society Missions and Purposes (1956)

On his work The Sympathizer in “Viet Thanh Nguyen: From both sides” https://www.writermag.com/writing-inspiration/author-interviews/viet-thanh-nguyen-sides/ in The Writer (2017 Jan 17)

Source: Cooperation, Terrorism, UK & USA, President Trump, Resolving Conflict, Defense, Crimea, The Media, Nuclear Weapons Policy: 15th Plenary Session (18 October 2018)

Speech in Berlin (29 November 1935), quoted in The Times (26 September 1939), p. 9
1930s

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Individual Culture, p. 264

In Defense of Women (1918)
1910s

Twitter, https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1103961763614203904 (8 March 2019) <br class="br">Twitter account, March 2019

Waldersee in his diary, 25 July 1890

Waldersee in his diary, November 1890

Source: Guerrilla Warfare (1961), Ch. II: 2. The Guerrilla Fighter as Combatant

Speech in Berlin (29 November 1924), quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 330
1920s

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. <br class="br">From an &quot; Ask Me Anything https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/22uz4m/i_am_james_cameron_ama/&quot; session on Reddit; as quoted in &quot;Director James Cameron on Vegan Diet: Like I&#x27;ve Set the Clock Back 15 Years&quot;, 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/

Source: The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806), p. 83

M. Walshe, trans. (1987), Sutta 1, verse 1.13
Pali Canon, Sutta Pitaka, Digha Nikaya (Long Discourses)

Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 14 (p. 315)

Our Immediate Tasks
Report on the Construction of Situations (1957)

Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (1962)

“Transcript of Judge James P. Gray's Visit to the Drug Policy Forum,” The New York Times, (June 14, 2001)

Diwan of Imru' al-Qays, Poem 2, quoted in Dictionary of Literary Biography, p. 213
The Poem of Imru' al-Qais

Book II, XI
Napoleon the Little (1852)

Preface
Geometry and the Imagination (1952)

Source: What's the Worst That Could Happen?: A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate (2009), Chapter 3 "Our Glitchy Brains" (p. 66)

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 14 (p. 223)

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 3 (p. 40)

Commissar-General Delane Oktar:
Warhammer 40,000 Works, Gaunt's Ghosts (novel series), First & Only

Strongman Medicine: Suspicious Numbers and Brutal Quarantines (April 02, 2020)

Quoted by * 2021-01-06
Rudy Giuliani Loses Honorary Degree From Middlebury College in Capitol Riot's Aftermath
Alexandra Garrett
Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com/rudy-giuliani-loses-honorary-degree-middlebury-college-capitol-riots-aftermath-1561331

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Water Book

Merlin to King Arthur in "The Death of Merlin"
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)

Last Speech to the National Convention (26 July 1794)

P. 17. Roses in the desert https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10937444-this-means-if-you-re-here-it-s-because-you-re-special-it-s,

Source: &quot;Gen. Robert L. Scott&quot; in The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2006/03/01/gen-robert-l-scott/b5a0d04e-7d3b-4189-9490-92489a10a78d/ (1 March 2006)

Source: 3 August 2021 reply https://twitter.com/andreaforboston/status/1422642209938186245 by Andrea Campbell

Source: Directives on the Cultural Revolution (1966-1972)

Source: Dado Center Journal vol. 6, January 2016, https://www.idf.il/media/11156/ortal.pdf

Speech at the 55th session of the United Nations General Assembly (excerpts) (2000)

Original: Non lamentarti della noia, mentre tu cerchi strategie per combatterla, ogni giorno nel mondo ci sono persone costrette a cercare soluzioni per vivere meglio.
Source: prevale.net