As is typical, its only after you’ve come up with some that you remember more.
“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…In our youths, our lives were touched by fire.”
-Oliver Wendall Holmes, US Civil War veteran
“It’s all my fault”
-Robert E. Lee. I’m no Lee fanatic, like so many people I talk to about the Civil War seem to be, but I can appreciate his legacy. This quote, spoken to his soldiers after the disastrous final attack at Gettysburg, has cemented his legend.
“And when he gets to heaven
to St Peter he will tell:
“One more soldier reporting Sir,
I’ve served my time in hell.”
-Soldier’s Prayer
“War is not nice“
-Barbara Bush
“The enemy is not beaten until he believes he is.”
-W.H. Kautt
“Pawns matter…It’s always more dramatic to take the bishop, and, if you can find them, the king and queen.”
-A CIA official
“When you start to die…don’t.”
-Corporal Frank Buckles, last American WW1 veteran
“A philosopher once said “When faced with untenable alternatives you should consider your imperative.” Look around you. Our imperative is right here, in our bulkheads, in our planes, in our guns and in ourselves. War is our imperative. And if right now victory seems like an impossibility, then we have something else to reach for: revenge, payback. So we will fight. Because in the end it’s the only alternative our enemies have left us.”
-Admiral Cain, Battlestar Galactica: Razor
“A culture’s teachings, and most importantly, the nature of its people, achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves…or find themselves lacking.”
-Kreia, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II
“Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier…”
-Samuel Johnson
“Walk slowly while thinking quickly.”
-Commandant Dan Harvey, on peacekeeping
“You only make peace with your enemies. That’s why it’s called “making peace”.
-George R.R. Martin, Game Of Thrones,
