"Battle is the ultimate to which the whole life's labor of an officer should be directed. He may live to the age of retirement without seeing a battle; still, he must always be getting ready for it exactly as if he knew the hour of the day it is to break upon him. And then, whether it come late or early he must be willing to fight - he must fight." Charles Ferguson Smith - Charles Ferguson Smith (April 24, 1807 – April 25, 1862) was a career United States Army officer who served in the Mexican–American War and as a Union General in the American Civil War.
"Be not concerned about me. I feel my shoulders relieved from the burden." John Adams, (October 30 [O.S. October 19] 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American lawyer, author, statesman, and diplomat. He served as the second President of the United States (1797–1801), the first Vice President (1789–1797)
"Britain's ruling class continued 'to take its weekends in the country, 'while Hitler takes his countries in the weekends.' " Winston Spencer Churchill - The Last Lion - Alone 1932 - 1940 by William Manchester
"Do I see that these people despise me, or do I see that they dread me? Can I bear contempt to know that I am despised? It is my duty to bear everything that I cannot help." John Adams, (October 30 [O.S. October 19] 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American lawyer, author, statesman, and diplomat. He served as the second President of the United States (1797–1801), the first Vice President (1789–1797)
"Of course I deprecate war, but if it is brought to my door the bringer will find me at home." 20th USA President James A. Garfield
"First and Foremost, I beseech you to remember that it is our bounden duty to work for peace, yet it is even more our duty to work for righteousness and justice." President Theodore Roosevelt
"Freedom is not free." U.S. Air Force Colonel Walter Hitchcock of New Mexico Military Institute; This quote is engraved into one wall at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
"How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing." Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, speaking about Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Last Lion - Visions of Glory 1874 - 1932
"How long will the nations continue to empty the future?" D. H. Lawrence, The Last Lion - Visions of Glory 1874 - 1932 by William Manchester
"I do not believe our Creator ever placed the different races on this earth with a view of having the strong exert all his energies in exterminating the weaker." Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was an American soldier, politician, and international statesman who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. During the American Civil War, General Grant, with President Abraham Lincoln, led the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy.
"I have always held . . . that the skin of the bear must not be distributed until the bear has been killed." Winston Churchill, The Last Lion - Defender of the Realm, 1940 - 1965 by Paul Reid
"I hope these speculative studies will be entrusted mainly to those on whose hands time hangs heavy, and that we shall not overlook Mrs. Glasse's Cookery Book recipe for the jugged hare - 'First catch your hare.' " Winston Churchill, The Last Lion - Defender of the Realm, 1940 - 1965 by Paul Reid
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study paintings, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain." John Adams, (October 30 [O.S. October 19] 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American lawyer, author, statesman, and diplomat. He served as the second President of the United States (1797–1801), the first Vice President (1789–1797)
" . . . if Nazi paratroopers, arrived, 'You will make it clear to them that they have not alighted in the poultry-run, or in the rabbit farm, or even in the sheep fold, but in the lion's den at the Zoo!' "Winston Churchill, The Last Lion - Defender of the Realm, 1940 - 1965 by Paul Reid
"In war, resolution; in defeat defiance; in victory, magnanimity; in peace, goodwill." Winston Churchill, The Last Lion - Visions of Glory 1874 - 1932 by William Manchester
"It is well that war is so terrible - we should grow too fond of it." Robert E. Lee, (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was an American soldier known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865.
"It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two, Master Warden, and those who have not swords can still die upon them . . ." Eowyn in The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
"Just as time-lapse photography makes visible, in an ever more compressed and penetrating form, movements that would otherwise not be thus grasped by our vision, so the war makes manifest in particularly drastic and unshrouded form that which for years has become ever more dreadfully clear to us as the essence of the 'world.' It is not war that first brings death, not war that first invents the pains and torments of human bodies and souls, not war that first unleashes lies, injustice, and violence. It is not war that first makes our existence so utterly precarious and renders human beings powerless, forcing them to watch their desires and plans being thwarted and destroyed by more 'exalted powers.' But war makes all of this, which existed already apart from it and before it, vast and unavoidable to us who would gladly prefer to overlook it all." Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Bonhoeffer Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas
"Let us have peace." Ulysses S. Grant writing in formal letter accepting the nomination for his 2nd term as president - Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was an American soldier, politician, and international statesman who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. During the American Civil War, General Grant, with President Abraham Lincoln, led the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy.
"Living in freedom and defending freedom are two sides of one and the same coin." Angela Merkel, born 17 July 1954) is a German politician and former research scientist who has been the Chancellor of Germany since 2005
"Madness is however an affliction which in war carries with it the advantage of surprise." Winston Churchill, The Last Lion - Defender of the Realm, 1940 - 1965 by Paul Reid
"Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn." Robert Burns (1759–96), Scottish poet, noted for poems such as “The Jolly Beggars” (1786) and “Tam o' Shanter” (1791), and for old Scottish songs that he collected, including “Auld Lang Syne.”
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."Winston Churchill, The Last Lion - Defender of the Realm, 1940 - 1965 by Paul Reid
"One feels such a tremendous longing for real peace, in which all the misery and injustice, the lying and cowardice will come to an end." Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church.
"Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them." Winston Churchill, The Last Lion - Defender of the Realm, 1940 - 1965 by Paul Reid
"Pray God that you may never know
The hell where youth and laughter go."
Siegfried Sassoon, (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English poet, writer, and soldier.
"Quiet is no certain pledge of permanence and safety. Trees may flourish and flowers may bloom upon the quiet mountain side, while silently the trickling rain-drops are filling the deep cavern behind its rocky barriers, which, by and by, in a single moment, shall hurl to wild ruin its treacherous peace." USA President James A. Garfield
" . . . Sail on, O ship of State!
Sail on, O Union strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate."
Winston Churchill, The Last Lion - Defender of the Realm, 1940 - 1965 by Paul Reid
"Thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your sacrifice." Visitors comments in the Bethesda Naval Hospital visiting wounded as written about in The Heart and the Fist by Eric Grditens
"The difficulty is not in winning the war; it is in persuading people to let you win it - persuading fools." Winston Churchill, The Last Lion - Defender of the Realm, 1940 - 1965 by Paul Reid
"To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." Sun Tzu was a Chinese general, military strategist, and philosopher who lived in the Spring and Autumn period of ancient China. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War, a widely influential work of military strategy that has affected both Western and Eastern philosophy.
"War is a game played with a smiling face, but do you think there is laughter in my heart?" Winston Churchill as stated to his daughter Sarah; Winston Spencer-Churchill, (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955.
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 8 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist and civil servant.
"War is the teacher, a hard, stern, efficient teacher." Winston Churchill, The Last Lion - Defender of the Realm, 1940 - 1965 by Paul Reid
"Wars of extermination . . . are demoralizing and wicked. Our superiority should make us lenient toward the Indian. The wrongs inflicted upon him should be taken into account and the balance placed to his credit." Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was an American soldier, politician, and international statesman who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. During the American Civil War, General Grant, with President Abraham Lincoln, led the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy.
"We must be prepared to pay the price for peace, or assuredly we shall pay the price of war." Harry Truman, (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953)
"What shall I think when I am called to die
Shall I not find too soon my life has ended?
The years, too quickly, have hastened by
With so little done of all that I'd intended.
There were so many things I'd meant to try
So many contests I had hoped to win
And lo, the end approaches just as I
Was thinking of preparing to begin."
Unknown English youth written in Singapore during WWII - taken from Through the Valley of the Kwai by Ernest Gordon
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