Surely Israel might now face the foe with unwavering confidence, and sing of victory even before the battle was gained. And so may the Christian. It is to no conflict of uncertain issue that he advances; the result of the battle is not doubtful. The struggle may be severe, the warfare long; he may sometimes, like the pilgrim, be beaten to the ground, and well-nigh lose his sword; but "though cast down" he is "not destroyed." The Captain of salvation is on his side, and in the midst of sharpest conflict he can say, "Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."--_S. A. Blackwood._
Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. [ The Gathering Storm , Bk.I, Ch.19, Houghton Mifflin, 1948, p.348.]
Let me get this straight,” Caleb said. “All we do is march around the city once a day for six days, and on the seventh day we march around the city seven times, and then the priests blow the trumpets, the people shout, and the walls fall down.” “Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” Caleb reached up and scratched his gray hair. “It doesn’t sound like any battle I’ve ever heard of. You’re going to have trouble explaining it to the people.” “It’s the word of the Lord, Caleb, and God has given us the victory. Come, we have plans to make. When those walls fall down, the city must be taken.
The saints have their empire, their glory, their victory, their lustre, and want no glory of the flesh or of the mind, with which they have nothing to do, for these add nothing to them neither do they take away. They are seen of God and the angels, and not by the bodily eye, nor by the curious spirit; God suffices them.
We avenge intellect when we dupe a fool, and it is a victory not to be despised.
The victory over death. What advantageth it a man that he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? He that will save his soul shall lose it.
~Energy.~--The longer I live, the more deeply am I convinced that that which makes the difference between one man and another--between the weak and powerful, the great and insignificant--is energy, invincible determination; a purpose once formed, and then death or victory. This quality will do anything that is to be done in the world; and no two-legged creature can become a man without it.--_Charles Buxton._
With all their enormous differences in natural endowment, men agree in one thing, and that is their innate desire to enjoy the pleasures and escape the pains of life; and, in short, to do nothing but that which it pleases them to do, without the least reference to the welfare of the society into which they are born. That is their inheritance (the reality at the bottom of the doctrine of original sin) from the long series of ancestors, human and semi-human and brutal, in whom the strength of this innate tendency to self-assertion was the condition of victory in the struggle for existence. That is the reason of the _aviditas vitæ_--the insatiable hunger for enjoyment--of all mankind, which is one of the essential conditions of success in the war with the state of nature outside; and yet the sure agent of the destruction of society if allowed free play within.
In no victory do they glory so much as in that which is gained by dexterity and good conduct without bloodshed. In such cases they appoint public triumphs, and erect trophies to the honour of those who have succeeded; for then do they reckon that a man acts suitably to his nature, when he conquers his enemy in such a way as that no other creature but a man could be capable of, and that is by the strength of his understanding.
~Reconciliation.~--It is much safer to reconcile an enemy than to conquer him; victory may deprive him of his poison, but reconciliation of his will.--_Owen Feltham._
Contentions for trifles can get but a trifling victory.
Double, double toil and trouble; that is the life of all governors that really govern; not the spoil of victory, only the glorious toil of battle can be theirs.
To arms! to arms! ye brave! The avenging sword unsheathe! March on! march on! all hearts resolved On victory or death!
The nerve that never relaxes, the eye that never blenches, the thought that never wanders--these are the masters of victory.
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, / Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, / Welcome to your gory bed, / Or to victory! / Now's the day and now's the hour; / See the front o' battle lour; / See approach proud Edward's power, / Chains and slavery.
(The Bible) contains plain teaching for men of every rank of soul and state of life, which so far as they honestly and implicitly obey, they will be happy and innocent to the utmost powers of their nature, and capable of victory over all adversities, whether of temptation or pain.
This is the prayer we need to pray for ourselves and for one another, "Lord, open our eyes that we may see"; for the world all around us, as well as around the prophet, is full of God's horses and chariots, waiting to carry us to places of glorious victory. And when our eyes are thus opened, we shall see in all the events of life, whether great or small, whether joyful or sad, a "chariot" for our souls. Everything that comes to us becomes a chariot the moment we treat it as such; and, on the other hand, even the smallest trial may be a Juggernaut car to crush us into misery or despair if we so consider them. It lies with each of us to choose which they shall be. It all depends, not upon what these events are, but upon how we take them. If we lie down under them, and let them roll over us and crush us, they become Juggernaut cars, but if we climb up into them, as into a car of victory, and make them carry us triumphantly onward and upward, they become the chariots of God.--_Smith._
Truth is its handmaid, freedom is its child, peace is its companion, safety walks in its steps, victory follows in its train; it is the brightest emanation from the Gospel; it is the attribute of God.
Wherever work is done, victory is obtained.
In prayer we should particularly combat our predominant passion or evil inclination. We should devote continual attention to it, because when it is once conquered we will easily obtain the victory over all our other faults.--ST. VINCENT DE PAUL.
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O grave! where is thy victory? O death! where is thy sting?
In veritate victoria=--Victory lies with the truth.
Victoria concordia crescit=--Victory is increased by concord.
Faith is necessary to victory.
One of the basic conditions for the victory of socialism is the arming of the workers and the disarming of the bourgeoisie (the middle class).
Strife alone pleases us and not the victory. We like to see beasts fighting, not the victor furious over the vanquished. We wish only to see the victorious end, and as soon as it comes, we are surfeited. It is the same in play, and in the search for truth. In all disputes we like to see the clash of opinions, but care not at all to contemplate truth when found. If we are to see truth with pleasure, we must see it arise out of conflict.
No battle is ever won... They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.
~Glory.~--To a father who loves his children victory has no charms. When the heart speaks, glory itself is an illusion.--_Napoleon._
It is not the victory that constitutes the joy of noble souls, but the combat.
Illa victoria viam ad pacem patefecit=--By that victory he opened the way to peace.
Tantus amor laudum, tant? est victoria cur?=--Such is the love of praise, so great the anxiety for victory.
Surely He may do what He will with His own. The price He has paid to make them His own is a sufficient guarantee that He will never make light of anything in which their welfare is at all concerned. We are precious to Him by the virtue of the blood which He has shed for us, and for Him to be found at any time wanting in solicitude for our happiness would be for Him to treat that blood of His as the sinners of this world treat it. The persuasion of Christ's love must be graven in our hearts so deeply that no semblance of indifference on His part will ever make the slightest impression upon us. This is the victory which overcometh the world.--_George Bowen._
We have not the innocence of Eden; but by God's help and Christ's example, we may have the victory of Gethsemane.
The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.
Aus dem Gebet erwachst des Geistes Sieg=--It is from prayer that the spirit's victory springs.
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.
Success (by laws of competition) signifies always so much victory over your neighbour as to obtain the direction of his work and take the profits of it. This is the real source of all great riches.
The wise man may strive to conquer, but he should never fight; because victory, it is observed, cannot be constant to both combatants.
The _Veda_ alone of all works I know treats of a genesis of God-consciousness, compared to which the Theogony of Hesiod is like a worn-out creature. We see it grow slowly and gradually with all its contradictions, its sudden terrors, its amazements, and its triumphs. As God reveals His Being in nature in her order, her indestructibility, in the eternal victory of light over darkness, of spring over winter, in the eternally returning course of the sun and the stars, so man has gradually spelt out of nature the Being of God, and after trying a thousand names for God in vain, we find Him in the _Veda_ already saying: 'They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna; then they call him the Heavenly, the bird with beautiful wings; that which is One they call in various ways.'... The belief in Immortality is only the other side, as it were, of the God-consciousness, and both are originally natural to the Aryan race.
Then he stood and cried out with a ringing voice, “In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” When Joshua stopped speaking, a mighty cry of victory went up from Israel. Othniel was standing beside his friend Achan. “If God can dry up the waters of the Red Sea and the Jordan River, then He can do something about the walls of Jericho too, I expect.
Beware of aggression in war--for it can lead to no glory in victory.
Sweet morning! There is hope in its music. Blessed is the day whose morning is sanctified! Successful is the day whose first victory was won in prayer! Holy is the day whose dawn finds thee on the top of the mount! Health is established in the morning. Wealth is won in the morning. The light is brightest in the morning. "Wake, psaltery and harp; I myself will awake early."--_Joseph Parker._
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.
Gran victoria es la que sin sangre se alcanza=--Great is the victory that is gained without bloodshed.
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
Patient constancy is the key to victory.
"But what good came of it at last?" Quoth little Peterkin. "Why, that I cannot tell," said he; "But 't was a famous victory."
No peace was ever won from fate by subterfuge or agreement; no peace is ever in store for any of us but that which we shall win by victory over shame or sin--victory over the sin that oppresses, as well as over that which corrupts.
If there is victory in overcoming the enemy, there is a greater victory when a man overcomes himself.
I am going to my Father’s; and though with great difficulty I have got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who will now be my rewarder. When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the river-side, into which as he went, he said, "Death, where is thy sting?" And as he went down deeper, he said, "Grave, where is thy victory?" So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.
The good citizen will demand liberty for himself, and as a matter of pride he will see to it that others receive the liberty which he thus claims as his own. Probably the best test of true love of liberty in any country is the way in which minorities are treated in that country. Not only should there be complete liberty in matters of religion and opinion, but complete liberty for each man to lead his life as he desires, provided only that in so doing he does not wrong his neighbor…. In every civilized society property rights must be carefully safeguarded; ordinarily, and in the great majority of cases, human rights and property rights are fundamentally and in the long run identical; but when it clearly appears that there is a real conflict between them, human rights must have the upper hand, for property belongs to man and not man to property…. We can just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an extreme individualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism…. It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat. [“Citizenship in a Republic,” Speech delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910. History as Literature (1913).]
What is the highest secret of victory and peace? To will what God wills, and strike a league with destiny.
Men of great genius have their empire, their glory, their grandeur, their victory, their lustre, and do not need worldly greatness, with which they have nothing to do. They are seen, not by the eye, but by the mind; and that is enough.
Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin; / Each victory will help you some other to win.
The only victory over love is flight.
Magnanimity to captives, and mercy to the fallen, are a hymn of praise to God for victory.
Absolutism tempered by assassination. A Cadmean victory.[807-2] After us the deluge.[807-3] All is lost save honour.[807-4] Appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober.[807-5] Architecture is frozen music.[807-6] Beginning of the end.[808-1] Boldness, again boldness, and ever boldness.[808-2] Dead on the field of honour.[808-3] Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.[808-4] Extremes meet.[808-5] Hell is full of good intentions.[808-6] History repeats itself.[808-7] I am here: I shall remain here.[808-8] I am the state.[808-9] It is magnificent, but it is not war.[808-10] Leave no stone unturned.[809-1] Let it be. Let it pass.[809-2] Medicine for the soul.[809-3] Nothing is changed in France; there is only one Frenchman more.[809-4] Order reigns in Warsaw.[809-5] Ossa on Pelion.[809-6] Scylla and Charybdis.[810-1] Sinews of war.[810-2] Talk of nothing but business, and despatch that business quickly.[810-3] The empire is peace.[810-4] The guard dies, but never surrenders.[810-5] The king reigns, but does not govern.[810-6] The style is the man himself.[811-1] "There is no other royal path which leads to geometry," said Euclid to Ptolemy I.[811-2] There is nothing new except what is forgotten.[811-3] They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.[811-4] We are dancing on a volcano.[811-5] Who does not love wine, women, and song Remains a fool his whole life long.[811-6] God is on the side of the strongest battalions.[811-7] Terrible he rode alone, With his Yemen sword for aid; Ornament it carried none But the notches on the blade.
The quantity of sorrow a man has, does it not mean withal the quantity of sympathy he has, the quantity of faculty and victory he shall have? Our sorrow is the inverted image of our nobleness.
Vincere scis, Hannibal, victoria uti nescis=--You know how to conquer, Hannibal, but you know not how to profit by your victory.
Learning is the source of renown, and the fountain of victory in the senate.
Those who start for human glory, like the mettled hounds of Actæon, must pursue the game not only where there is a path, but where there is none. They must be able to simulate and dissimulate, to leap and to creep; to conquer the earth like Cæsar, or to fall down and kiss it like Brutus; to throw their sword like Brennus into the trembling scale; or, like Nelson, to snatch the laurels from the doubtful hand of Victory, while she is hesitating where to bestow them.--_Colton._
Envy offends with false infamy, that is to say, by detraction which frightens virtue. Envy must be represented with the hands raised to heaven in contempt, because if she could she would use her power against God. Make her face covered with a goodly mark; show her as wounded in the eye by a palm-branch, and wounded in the ear by laurel and myrtle, to signify that victory and truth offend her. Draw many thunderbolts proceeding from her as a symbol of her evil-speaking. Make her lean and shrivelled up, because she is continual dissolution. Make her heart gnawed by a swelling serpent. Make her a quiver full of tongues for arrows, because she often offends with these. Make her a leopard's skin, because the leopard kills the lion through envy and by deceit. Place a vase in her hand full of flowers, and let it be full also of scorpions, toads and other reptiles. Let her ride Death, because Envy, which is undying, never wearies of sovereignty. {134} Make her a bridle loaded with divers arms, because her weapons are all deadly. As soon as virtue is born it begets envy which attacks it; and sooner will there exist a body without a shadow than virtue unaccompanied by envy.
Prayer is our principal weapon. By it we obtain of God the victory over our evil inclinations, and over all temptations of hell.--ST. ALPHONSUS.
Bis vincit qui se vincit in victoria=--He conquers twice who, at the moment of victory, conquers (
Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains that victory.
Victori? gloria merces=--Glory is the reward of victory.
The art of victory is learned in defeat.
Love cries victory when the tears of a woman become the sole defense of her virtue.--_La Fontaine._
When the soul has once reached that union with God, nay, when it lives in the constant presence of God, evil becomes almost impossible. We know that most of the evil deeds to which human nature is prone are possible in the dark only. Before the eyes of another human being, more particularly of a beloved being, they become at once impossible. How much more in the real presence of a real and really beloved God, as felt by the true mystic, not merely as a phrase, but as a fact? As long as there is no veil between him and God, evil thoughts, evil words, and evil deeds are simply impossible to one who feels the actual presence of God. Nor is he troubled any longer by questions, such as how the world was created, how evil came into the world. He is satisfied with the Divine Love that embraces his soul; he has all that he can desire, his whole life is hid through Christ in God, death is swallowed up in victory, the mortal has become immortal, neither death nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, is able to separate his soul from the love of God.
It was a very grudging assent. It was as much as to say, "Since Thou art determined to send me and I must undertake the mission, then let it be so; but I would that it might have been another, and I go because I am compelled." So often do we shrink back from the sacrifice or obligation to which God calls us, that we think we are going to our doom. We seek every reason for evading the divine will, little realizing that He is forcing us out from our quiet homes into a career which includes, among other things, the song of victory on the banks of the Red Sea; the two lonely sojourns for forty days in converse with God; the shining face; the vision of glory; the burial by the hand of Michael; and the supreme honor of standing beside the Lord on the Transfiguration mount.--_F. B. Meyer._
In the battle off Cape St. Vincent, Nelson gave orders for boarding the "San Josef," exclaiming "Westminster Abbey, or victory!"
If a noble soul is rendered tenfold beautifuller by victory and prosperity, an ignoble one is rendered tenfold and a hundredfold uglier, pitifuller.
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
. . He had by now divested himself of schoolboy attitudes. He was unburdened by the desire to be a martyr or a hero. Any thoughts in that direction, Belgica effectively had quashed. Heroism in the corrupt sense of the age almost by definition, meant wanton self-sacrifice and bungling. For neither had he any taste. He wanted rational attainment; victory, but not at any price. No point upon the globe was worth the cost of a single life.
Many men, in all ages, have triumphed over death, and led it captive; converting its physical victory into a moral victory for themselves, into a zeal and immortal consecration for all that their past life had achieved.
Bellona has answered my prayer. She doesn't fight my battles for me. She doesn't guarantee me easy victory. She grants me opportunities to prove myself. She gives me strong enemies and potential allies.
The victory of endurance born.
Melior tutiorque est certa pax, quam sperata victoria=--A certain peace is better and safer than an expected victory.
Character is victory organised.
It is for man to establish the reign of liberty in the midst of the world of the given. To gain the supreme victory, it is necessary, for one thing, that by and through their natural differentiation men and women unequivocally affirm their brotherhood.
Fight on, thou brave true heart, and falter not, through dark fortune and through bright, the cause thou fightest for, so far as it is true, is very sure of victory.
One world, one mankind cannot exist in the face of six, four or even two scales of values: We shall be torn apart by this disparity of rhythm, this disparity of vibrations.… Our 20th Century has proved to be more cruel than preceding centuries, and the first fifty years have not erased all its horrors; our world is rent asunder by those same old cave-age emotions of greed, envy, lack of control, mutual hostility which have picked up in passing respectable pseudonyms like class struggle, radical conflict, struggle of the masses, trade-union disputes. The primeval refusal to accept a compromise has been turned into a theoretical principle and is considered the virtue of orthodoxy. It demands millions of sacrifices in ceaseless civil wars, it drums into our souls that there is no such thing as unchanging, universal concepts of goodness and justice, that they are all fluctuating and inconstant.… Violence, less and less embarrassed by the limits imposed by centuries of lawfulness, is brazenly and victoriously striding across the whole world, unconcerned that its infertility has been demonstrated and proved many times in history. What is more, it is not simply crude power that triumphs abroad, but its exultant justification. The world is being inundated by the brazen conviction that power can do anything, justice nothing.… The young, at an age when they have not yet any experience other than sexual, when they do not yet have years of personal suffering and personal understanding behind them, are jubilantly repeating our depraved Russian blunders of the 19th Century, under the impression that they are discovering something new. They acclaim the latest wretched degradation on the part of the Chinese Red Guards as a joyous example. In shallow lack of understanding of the age-old essence of mankind, in the naive confidence of inexperienced hearts they cry: Let us drive away those cruel, greedy oppressors, governments, and the new ones (we), having just laid aside grenades and rifles, will be just and understanding. Far from it.… But of those who have lived more and understand, those who could oppose these young—many do not dare oppose, they even suck up, anything not to appear conservative. Another Russian phenomenon of the 19th Century which Dostoyevsky called slavery to progressive quirks.… The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles.… The price of cowardice will only be evil. We shall reap courage and victory only when we dare to make sacrifices. [ The Wall Street Journal , September 6, 1972, p. 14.]