Defence Quotes - Page 14

• What astounds me about the history of the British Navy is how cheaply we have policed the world for 300 years.

  Ernest Bevin

  Years, British Navy, World

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• If you look ahead 10 years, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the people of Russia had become fans of missile defence.

  Donald Rumsfeld

  Russia, Years, People

  "Kremlin resists charms of Star Wars" by Ian Traynor, www.theguardian.com. August 12, 2001.

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• No one is going to question my commitment to the defence of our nation. I don't know what it is these Republicans, who didn't serve in any war, have against those of us who are Democrats who did.

  John F. Kerry

  War, Commitment, Republican

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• The army will hear nothing of politics from me and in return I expect to hear nothing of politics from the army.

  H. H. Asquith

  Army, Return

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• Chain-mail isn't much defence against an arrow. It certainly isn't when the arrow is being aimed between your eyes.

  Terry Pratchett

  Eye, Arrows, Mail

  Terry Pratchett (2008). “Lords And Ladies: (Discworld Novel 14)”, p.284, Random House

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• There is no security for any power unless it be a security in which its neighbours have an equal share.

  Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon

  Share, Equal, Neighbour

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• There's a theory that snoring at night in sleep is a subconscious defence reflex-a warning sound that frightened potential predators away from the mouth of the cave when our lower-paleolithic ancestors huddled in vulnerable sleep. That group of nomads, cameleers, sheep and goat herders, farmers, and guerilla fighters lent credibility to the idea, for they snored so thunderously and with such persistent ferocity through the long, cold night that they would've frightened a pride of ravenous lions into scattering like startled mice.

  Gregory David Roberts

  Sleep, Pride, Night

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• I make terrible jokes every time I go into a hospital. I think it's a defence mechanism.

  Sanjeev Bhaskar

  Thinking, Terrible, Jokes

  "My body & soul". Interview with Laura Potter, www.theguardian.com. May 30, 2009.

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• The consequence is that every man comes to know himself solely in terms of his power for defence and attack.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Men, Term, Knows

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• It would have been very alarming - morally, and in other ways too - if an attack of that nature, the 11 September attacks, had not aroused in us and in our governments and societies the spirit of self-defence. If that had not been one of the responses it seems to me there would have been very grave cause for concern.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Government, Self, Way

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• When grand plans for scientific and defence technologies are made, do the people in power think about the sacrifices the people in the laboratories and fields have to make?

  Abdul Kalam

  Sacrifice, Technology, Thinking

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• At the bottom of religious persecution is the doctrine of self-defence; that is to say, the defence of the soul. If the founder of Christianity had plainly said: 'It is not necessary to believe in order to be saved; it is only necessary to do, and he who really loves his fellow-men, who is kind, honest, just and charitable, is to be forever blest' - if he had only said that, there would probably have been but little persecution.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Religious, Believe, Men

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• Doesn't every band sort of appropriate their influences into what they do? I guess that would be my defence: if you're making something, you kinda can't help being a conduit for other things.

  Panda Bear

  Would Be, Band, Helping

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• I guess that's my defence, is like - even if people think it sucks - it's not me anymore, you know.

  Panda Bear

  Thinking, People, Knows

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• From a political perspective, it is important to uphold certain universal principles so that, for example, you can condemn both Islamist forms of violence and injustice as well as forms of violence and injustice from other groups - some superpowers, for example, or the English Defence League, as other examples.

  Alison Assiter

  League, Perspective, Political

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• In the end the privatisation of war is not acceptable. We shouldn't be issuing these sub-contracts to these contracting companies because the people who run them are making millions. There should be no relationship between ex-politicians and them, like John Reid and Malcolm Rifkind, who are now associated with contracting companies having been ministers of defence. That's unacceptable.

  Ken Loach

  Running, War, People

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

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• I am never proud to participate in violence, yet I know that each of us must care enough for ourselves that we can be ready and able to come to our own defence when and wherever needed.

  Maya Angelou

  Care, Proud, Able

  Maya Angelou (2008). “Letter to My Daughter”, p.47, Random House

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• I don't know if this is the kind of retrospective analysis that people are fond of applying to their work or actions, but it feels like I knew I was going to be famous and I knew that an element of that would be traumatic, so that if I could make myself something big and otherworldly, it would be a kind of defence.

  Russell Brand

  People, Would Be, Analysis

  "Russell Brand: This charming man". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. June 4, 2010.

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• We must pay greater attention to keeping our bodies and minds healthy and able to heal. Yet we are making it difficult for our defences to work. We allow things to be sold that should not be called food. Many have no nutritive value and lead to obesity, salt imbalance, and allergies.

  David Suzuki

  Healthy, Mind, Salt

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• Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defence against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can’t touch and see.

  C. S. Lewis

  Real, Mean, Thinking

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “The Screwtape Letters”, p.4, Harper Collins

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• He could not forget the touch of her arms around his neck, impatiently felt as it had been at the time; but now the recollection of her clinging defence of him, seemed to thrill him through and through,—to melt away every resolution, all power of self-control, as if it were wax before a fire.

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Love, Romantic, Fire

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2010). “The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell (20+ Books)”, p.1513, BookCaps Study Guides

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• In a world of chance is there a better and a worse? We yield to a stranger's embrace or give ourselves to the waves; for the blink of an eyelid our vigilance relaxes; we are asleep; and when we awake, we have lost the direction of our lives. What are these blinks of an eyelid, against which the only defence is an eternal and inhuman wakefulness? Might they not be the cracks and chinks through which another voice, other voices, speak in our lives? By what right do we close our ears to them? (Susan Barton)

  J. M. Coetzee

  Yield, Voice, Giving

  J. M. Coetzee (2017). “Foe: A Novel”, p.25, Penguin

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• One of the goals of philosophy is wage theoretical battle. That is why we can say that every thesis is always, by its very nature, an antithesis. A thesis is only ever put forward in opposition to another thesis, or in defence of a new one.

  Louis Althusser

  Philosophy, Goal, Battle

  Louis Althusser, François Matheron, Olivier Corpet (2006). “Philosophy of the Encounter: Later Writings, 1978-87”, p.268, Verso

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• I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. Oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly.You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it.

  Vita Sackville-West

  Art, Clever, Love You

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• If she and Sam ever had kids, they'd be gluten-intolerant out of self-defence.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Kids, Self, Gluten

  Maggie Stiefvater (2014). “Shiver Series (Shiver, Linger, Forever, Sinner)”, p.1006, Scholastic UK

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