Defence Quotes - Page 4

• Before Geller we did not understand the King's Indian Defence.

  Mikhail Botvinnik

  Kings, Chess, Opening

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• The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Law, Speak, Guilty

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1823). “Frankenstein: ; Or, The Modern Prometheus”, p.209, DOSER Reads

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• Philosophy, the love of Wisdom, is at the very bottom defence against the incomprehensible.

  Oswald Spengler

  Philosophy, Bottom

  Oswald Spengler (1926). “The Decline of the West...: Form and actuality”

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• If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwise--if regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham, and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment.

  Jane Austen

  Gratitude, Attachment, Two

  Jane Austen (2008). “Pride and Prejudice”, p.371, Waking Lion Press

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• The clearest evidence that we are living beyond environmental means is the threat of dangerous climate change. The scale of this threat, to human life and to the natural resources and assets on which it depends, for everything from oxygen and clean water to healthy soils and flood defence, means that this simply must be our top priority

  David Miliband

  Mean, Oxygen, Water

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• Like mortars in old war films, they are often ready to destroy the opponent's unsupported defences.

  Alexey Suetin

  War, Opponents, Chess

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• The strength to kill is not essential for self-defence; one ought to have the strength to die.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Courage, Self, Essentials

  Mahatma Gandhi (2005). “All Men Are Brothers”, p.93, A&C Black

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• When Alekhine recognizes the weakness in his position he has a tendency to become very aggressive. Patient defence is not for him if he can see the slightest chance of creating an attack. Yet sound strategy often demands that you submit to the opponent's will so as to strengthen your weaknesses and get rid of defects in your game.

  Emanuel Lasker

  Games, Creating, Weakness

  55 Copy quote

• I had started by imitating a parrot, which is unusual, in that a parrot is supposed to imitate you. By taking the initiative you allow the parrot no alternative but to be itself, which proves again that attack is often the best defence.

  Peter Ustinov

  Bird, Alternatives, Unusual

  Peter Ustinov (1978). “Dear Me”, Penguin Books

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• If you play good attack, you win the game, but, if you play good defence you win championships

  Zeljko Obradovic

  Basketball, Winning, Games

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• This government does not believe that public safety is enhanced by carrying weapons. In fact, it has been a long-standing Canadian government practice to discourage the use of personal defence weapons. Once public possession of one type of weapon is condoned for personal defence, the situation of weapon possession for protection starts to spiral upwards towards more powerful and dangerous weapons.

  Anne McLellan

  Powerful, Believe, Government

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• You know what's the most terrifying thing about admitting that you're in love? You're just naked. You put yourself in harm's way and you lay down all your defences. No clothes, no weapons. Nowhere to hide, completely vulnerable. The only thing that makes it tolerable is to believe the other person loves you back and you can trust him not to hurt you.

  Mary Doria Russell

  Love, Dream, Hurt

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• There is no defence against an evil which only the victims and the perpetrators know exists.

  Christopher X. Brodeur

  Evil, Denial, Victim

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• There are two types of compassion. One - is faint-hearted and sentimental. Actually, it is nothing more than impatience of the heart, that is hurrying to get rid of that hard feeling when you see other peoples' sufferings; this is not a compassion, but just an instinct will to defence yourself from misfortunes of others. But there is another compassion - real one, that demands for actions, not sentiments, it knows what it wants, and it is full of determination to do everything, what is in human power and even beyond it.

  Stefan Zweig

  Love, Dream, Determination

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• O' beautiful for spacious skies
  But now those skies are threatening
  They're beating plowshares into swords
  For this tired old man that we elected king
  Armchair warriors often fail
  And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
  The lawyers clean up all details
  Since daddy had to lie
  But I know a place where we can go
  And wash away this sin
  We'll sit and watch the clouds roll by
  And the tall grass wave in the wind
  Just lay your head back on the ground
  And let your hair spill all around me
  Offer up your best defence
  But this is the end
  This is the end of the innocence

  Don Henley

  Beautiful, Song, Kings

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• A few question marks are being asked in the Honduran defence

  Alan Green

  Soccer, Football, Mark

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• By the laws of rectitude accused Persons, however atrocious their offences, are allowed to make their defence, and by a verdict of a Jury of their Peers, they are either convicted, or acquitted. I have some times thought that we Women are hardly dealt by since strictly speaking, we cannot legally be tried by our Peers, for men are not our Peers, and yet upon their breath our guilt or innocence depends— thus are our privileges in this, as in many other respects tyrannically abridged, and we are forced to yield to necessity.

  Judith Sargent Murray

  Men, Yield, Law

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• We won't apologise for our way of life, nor will we weaver in its defence, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken, you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

  Barack Obama

  Broken, Stronger, Way

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• The Sicilian Defence was our attempt at quickly fulfilling our contractual obligation after I Robot, Pyramid and Eve had been delivered. The album was rejected by Arista, not surprisingly, and we then renegotiated our deal for the future and the next album, The Turn of a Friendly Card. The Sicilian Defence album was never released and never will be, if I have anything to do with it. I have not heard it since it was finished. I hope the tapes no longer exist.

  Alan Parsons

  Pyramids, Friendly, Robots

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• I can’t count the times I have lagged seemingly hopelessly far behind, and nobody except myself thinks I can win. But I have pulled myself in from desperate [situations]. When you are behind there are two strategies - counter-attack or all men to the defences. I’m good at finding the right balance between those.

  Magnus Carlsen

  Men, Thinking, Winning

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• It is annoying that the rules of chess do not allow a pawn to take either horizontally or backwards, but only forwards ... This psychological tuning is ideal for attacking purposes, but what about for defence?

  David Bronstein

  Purpose, Tuning, Chess

  David Bronstein (1991). “200 Open Games”, p.195, Courier Corporation

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• In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property.

  Samuel Adams

  Mean, Men, Rights

  John White, Cecil Calvert Baltimore (2d Baron), Charles Hudson, Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson, Massachusetts Historical Society (1904). “The planting of colonies in New England”

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• The General most earnestly requires, and expects, a due observance of those articles of war, established for the government of the army which forbid profane cursing, swearing and drunkenness; and in like manner requires and expects, of all officers, and soldiers, not engaged on actual duty, a punctual attendance on divine service, to implore the blessings of heaven upon the means used for our safety and defence.

  George Washington

  War, Mean, Army

  George Washington, Thomas Francis Bayard (1775). “Specimen pages of a proposed publication of the papers of Washington, Franklin, etc”, p.14

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• There is no defence for my actions which I sincerely regret. [on an affair with nanny Daisy Wright]

  Jude Law

  Regret, Nannies, Action

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• Closeness means you get hurt; closeness means letting down your defences and letting people see the tender skin under the carapace.

  Cathy Kelly

  Hurt, Mean, People

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