Hence to fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. [ The Art of War, translated by Lionel Giles, Luzac & Co., London, 1910, p. 17.]
Der Mensch war immer Mensch, voll Unvollkommenheit=--Man has ever been man, full of imperfection.
The bodies of men, munition, and money, may justly be called the sinews of war.--_Sir W. Raleigh._
The terms of surrender at the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin, in 1187, were that the Crusaders should retire with their goods from that city to one of the garrisoned ports which were held by the Franks, on the payment of ten pieces of gold for each man. As they were filing out of the city, and handing in their ransom-money, Saladin and his generals looked on, watching the proceedings. The patriarch's turn came, and he was followed by a number of mules laden with much treasure. Saladin made no sign, but his generals said: "Sire, the conditions of surrender were for private property, not for such treasures of money, which we urgently need for carrying on the war." To this appeal he replied: "No, I have pledged my word, and for the ten pieces of gold agreed upon he shall be free."
C'est son cheval de bataille=--That is his forte (
In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man / As modest stillness and humility; / But when the blast of war blows in our ears, / Then imitate the action of the tiger; / Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, / Disguise fair Nature with hard-favour'd rage, / Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; / Let it pry through the portage of the head / Like the brass cannons.
On termine de longs proces / Par un peu de guerre civile=--We end protracted law-suits by a little civil war.
We are at war between consciousness and nature, between the desire for permanence and the fact of flux. It is ourself against ourselves.
Guerre a mort=--War to the death.
The immense accumulations of fixed capital which, to the great benefit of mankind, were built up during the half century before the war, could never have come about in a Society where wealth was divided equitably. [ The Economic Consequences of the Peace , Chapter 2, Section III.]
The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
How can we escape from the trap that the terrorists have set us? Only by recognizing that the war on terrorism cannot be won by waging war. We must, of course, protect our security; but we must also correct the grievances on which terrorism feeds. Crime requires police work, not military action.
In the first place, there is no evidence at all that the planned economies achieve a higher degree of economic justice than does the free market. Even if we assume that there is a consensus on the need to redistribute purchasing power, it can be done without destroying the freedom of choice and efficiency of the market economy… [B]ut those who espouse any kind of planning in the interests of justice and fairness to the poor, never favor voluntary solutions to the problems they perceive in the distribution of income or property. When given the opportunity, the public-planning advocates have invariably accumulated as much power as possible over income and property. Stripped of their masks, what they really want is not justice but control over other people’s lives. [ The War Against Population, The Economics and Ideology of Population Control , Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988, pp. 76-77.]
Militat omnis amans=--Every lover is engaged in a war.
One ideological claim is that private property is theft, that the natural product of the existence of property is evil, and that private ownership therefore should not exist… .What those who feel this way don’t realize is that property is a notion that has to do with control — that property is a system for the disposal of power. The absence of property almost always means the concentration of power in the state.… So many of the new nations which were established as democracies after the second world war, during the decolonizing process, have now changed their system to state-socialism. Small elites run them, and they aren’t sharing societies. They aren’t even socialist. The power of the state has been merged with business property) and you have the greatest concentration of power that’s possible. [ Nation’s Business , February 1976.]
There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.
One 'ud think, an' hear some folk talk, as the men war cute enough to count the corns in a bag o' wheat wi' only smelling at it.
Ez fer war, I call it murder,-- There you hev it plain an' flat; I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment fer that. An' you 've gut to git up airly Ef you want to take in God.
When diplomacy ends, War begins.
...though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from
About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddhist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort. I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead. My German-American ancestors, the earliest of whom settled in our Middle West about the time of our Civil War, called themselves "Freethinkers," which is the same sort of thing. My great grandfather Clemens Vonnegut wrote, for example, "If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter whether he was God or not?" I myself have written, "If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake."
Wherever there is war, there must be injustice on one side or the other, or on both.
That warrior on his strong war-horse, fire flashes through his eyes; force dwells in his arm and heart; but warrior and war-horse are a vision; a revealed force, nothing more. Stately they tread the earth, as if it were firm substance. Fool! the earth is but a film; it cracks in twain, and warrior and war-horse sink beyond plummet's sounding.
There 's but the twinkling of a star Between a man of peace and war.
The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.
Sometimes you lose a battle. But mischief always wins the war
The tyrant custom, most grave senators, Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war My thrice-driven bed of down.
Men of sense often learn from their enemies. Prudence is the best safeguard. This principle cannot be learned from a friend, but an enemy extorts it immediately. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war. And this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties.--_Aristophanes._
And the evil is done in hopes that evil surrenders but the deeds of the devil are burned too deep in the embers and a world of hunger in vengeance will always remember So please be reassured, we seek no wider war, we seek no wider war.
All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
Bellum ita suscipiatur, ut nihil aliud nisi pax qu?sita videatur=--War should be so undertaken that nothing but peace may seem to be aimed at.
It is false that we are worthy of the love of others, it is unjust that we should desire it. If we were born reasonable and impartial, knowing ourselves and others, we should not give this bias to our will. But we are born with it; we are therefore born unjust, for all tends to self. This is contrary to all order. We should look to the general advantage, and the inclination to self is the beginning of all disorder, in war, in politics, in economy, and in man's own body.
Chi compra terra, compra guerra=--Who buys land, buys war.
Exigui numero, sed bello vivida virtus=--Few in number, yet their valour ardent for war.
When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war.
Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel war' / Und wollt uns gar verschlingen / So furchten wir uns nicht so sehr, / Es soll uns doch gelingen=--And were this all devils o'er, / And watching to devour us, / We lay it not to heart so sore, / Not they can overpower us.
The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit — for gallantry in defeat — for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally-flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man, has no dedication nor any membership in literature.
All delays are dangerous in war.
Tam Marti quam Mercurio=--As much for Mars as for Mercury; as well qualified for war as for business.
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
"Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile."
Noble spirits war not with the dead.
There never was a good war or a bad peace.
I am utterly convinced that Science and Peace will triumph over Ignorance and War, that nations will eventually unite not to destroy but to edify, and that the future will belong to those who have done the most for the sake of suffering humanity.
Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
No bravery in war can withstand overwhelming numbers.
The most important thing for the world today in my opinion is a spiritual regeneration which would reestablish a feeling of good faith among men generally. Discouraged people are in sore need of the inspiration of great principles. Such leadership can be the rallying point against intolerance, against distrust, against that fatal insecurity that leads to war. It is to be hoped that the democratic nations can provide the necessary leadership.
There was never a good war, or a bad peace.
He who did well in war just earns the right / To begin doing well in peace.
"Nuclear war would really set back cable."
Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.
The fate of war is to be exalted in the morning, and low enough at night! There is but one step from triumph to ruin.--_Napoleon._
Te, Fortuna, sequor: procul hinc jam f?dera sunto: / Credidimus fatis, utendum est judice bello=--Thee, Fortune, I follow; hence far all treaties past; to fate I commit myself, and the arbitrament of war. _Lucan on the crossing of the Rubicon by C?sar._
Teach your boy to fly, and he will be safe from spears and antique rifles." "I don't want him to go to war at all!" "When it comes, you will have no choice. The only way to save him is to lift him above the crowd.
We should provide in peace what we need in war.
Omnibus hostes / Reddite nos populis, civile avertite bellum=--Commit us to hostility with every other nation, but avert from us civil war.
From kings and priests and statesmen war arose, / Whose safety is man's deep embittered woe, / Whose grandeur his debasement.
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.
There was, it is said, a criminal in Italy, who was suffered to make his choice between Guicciardini and the galleys. He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was too much for him. He changed his mind, and went to the oars.--_Macaulay._
We love peace, as we abhor pusillanimity; but not peace at any price. There is a peace more destructive of the manhood of living man than war is destructive of his material body. Chains are worse than bayonets.
No century has been more concerned than ours to do away with war: it has proved signally unsuccessful. All too little attention has been given to the phenomenon that internal politics have become increasingly more warlike.
It is allowed by the laws of war to deceive an enemy by feints, false colours, spies, false intelligence, or the like; but by no means in treaties, truces, signals of capitulation or surrender.
Fathers alone a father's heart can know, / What secret tides of sweet enjoyment flow / When brothers love! But if their hate succeeds, / They wage the war, but 'tis the father bleeds.
He is come to open The purple testament of bleeding war.
But war's a game which, were their subjects wise, / Kings would not play at.
The brazen throat of war.
Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD: The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.
A hero is someone who rebels or seems to rebel against the facts of existence and seems to conquer them. Obviously that can only work at moments. It can't be a lasting thing. That's not saying that people shouldn't keep trying to rebel against the facts of existence. Someday, who knows, we might conquer death, disease and war.
He who did well in war just earns the right To begin doing well in peace.
As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people.
Knowledge has, in our time, triumphed, and is triumphing, over prejudice, and over bigotry. The civilized and Christian world is fast learning the great lesson, that difference of nation does not imply necessary hostility, and that all contact need not be war. The whole world is becoming a common field for intellect to act in. Energy of mind, genius, power, wheresoever it exists, may speak out in any tongue, and the world will hear it.--_Daniel Webster._
In less than a century, computers will be making substantial progress on
Wherever there is war, there must be injustice on one side or the other, or on both. There have been wars which were little more than trials of strength between friendly nations, and in which the injustice was not to each other, but to the God who gave them life. But in a malignant war there is injustice of ignobler kind at once to God and man, which must be stemmed for both their sakes.--_Ruskin._
If a squatter, living ten miles away from any neighbour, chooses to burn his house down to get rid of vermin, there may be no necessity (in the absence of insurance offices) that the law should interfere with his freedom of action; his act can hurt nobody but himself. But if the dweller in a street chooses to do the same thing, the State very properly makes such a proceeding a crime, and punishes it as such. He does meddle with his neighbour's freedom, and that seriously. So it might, perhaps, be a tenable doctrine, that it would be needless, and even tyrannous, to make education compulsory in a sparse agricultural population, living in abundance on the produce of its own soil; but, in a densely populated manufacturing country, struggling for existence with competitors, every ignorant person tends to become a burden upon, and, so far, an infringer of the liberty of, his fellows, and an obstacle to their success. Under such circumstances an education rate is, in fact, a war tax, levied for purposes of defence.
I war not with the dead.
La guerre ou l'amour=--War or love.
Martem accendere cantu=--To waken up the war-spirit by his note.
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.
Let us face squarely the paradox that the world which goes to war is a world, usually, genuinely desiring peace. War is the outcome, not mainly of evil intentions, but on the whole, of good intentions which miscarry or are frustrated. It is made, not usually by evil men knowing themselves to be wrong, but is the outcome of policies pursued by good men usually passionately convinced that they are right.
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Der Friede ist immer die letzte Absicht des Krieges=--Peace is ever the final aim of war.
Implements of war and subjugation are the last arguments to which kings resort.--_Patrick Henry._
It is true there is difficulty in entering into a devout life, but this difficulty does not arise from the religion which begins in us, but from the irreligion which is still there. If our senses were not opposed to penitence, and if our corruption were not opposed to the purity of God, there would be nothing in this painful to us. We suffer only in proportion as the vice which is natural to us resists supernatural grace; our heart feels torn asunder by these conflicting efforts, but it would be most unjust to impute this violence to God, who draws us, instead of attributing it to the world, which holds us back. As a child which a mother tears from the robbers' arms, in the anguish it suffers should love the loving and legitimate violence of her who procures its liberty, and detest only the imperious and tyrannical violence of those who retain it unjustly. The most cruel war which God can make against men in this life is to leave them without that war which he came to bring. "I came to bring war," he says, and to inform them of this war, "I came to bring fire and the sword." Before him the world lived in a false peace.
Bellic? virtutis pr?mium=--The reward of valour in war.
Incerti sunt exitus belli=--The results of war are uncertain.
We preach free enterprise capitalism. We believe in it, we give our lives in war for it, but the closest most of us come to profiting from it are a few miserable shares of stock in a company that doesn’t pay large enough dividends to keep a small mouse in cheese. The truth is, most of us are job serfs. At a time when invested capital returns 20 to 30 per cent, we have no capital. We only have our wages and salaries, and a debt so high that something like 20 cents on every dollar we earn is spent to pay off what we owe…. As citizens we’re supposed to function as independent political beings when we’re economic capons, near bankrupts, who’re saved from foreclosure because our creditors know that we, the vast noncapitalist majority, have nothing but next week’s paycheck…. Everybody’s going around telling everybody else, “Nothing works.”
Hinc usura vorax, avidumque in tempore f?nus, / Et concussa fides, et multis utile bellum=--Hence (from the ambition of C?sar) arise devouring usury, grasping interest, shaken credit, and war of advantage to many.
We do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their fundamental faith in human progress — that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey. For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace — then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.
Peace is the happy natural state of man; war his corruption, his disgrace.
Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.
Miseram pacem vel bello bene mutari=--An unhappy peace may be profitably exchanged for war.
Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumour of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more.
Ancestral voices prophesying war.
Der Schein, was ist er, dem das Wesen fehlt? / Das Wesen war' es, wenn es nicht erschiene?=--The appearance, what is it without the reality? And what were the reality without the appearance? (the clothes, as "Sartor" has it, without the man, or the man without the clothes).
Guerra al cuchillo=--War to the knife.
Yet spirit immortal, the tomb cannot bind thee, But like thine own eagle that soars to the sun Thou springest from bondage and leavest behind thee A name which before thee no mortal hath won. Tho' nations may combat, and war's thunders rattle, No more on thy steed wilt thou sweep o'er the plain: Thou sleep'st thy last sleep, thou hast fought thy last battle, No sound can awake thee to glory again.