Defence Quotes - Page 8

• To come to know your enemy, first you must become his friend, and once you become his friend, all his defences come down. Then you can choose the most fitting method for his demise.

  Ieyasu Tokugawa

  Wisdom, Enemy, Demise

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• Most men are followers, and implicitly rely upon the judgment of others. They mistake solemnity for wisdom, and regard a grave countenance as the title page and Preface to a most learned volume. So they are easily imposed upon by forms, strange garments, and solemn ceremonies. And when the teaching of parents, the customs of neighbors, and the general tongue approve and justify a belief or creed, no matter how absurd, it is hard even for the strongest to hold the citadel of his soul. In each country, in defence of each religion, the same arguments would be urged.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Country, Wisdom, Mistake

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.773, Library of Alexandria

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• Have not Manet and Monet, Cézanne and Matisse, rendered to painting something of the same service which Keats and Shelley gave to poetry after the solemn and ceremonious literary perfections of the eighteenth century? They have brought back to the pictorial art a new draught of joie de vivre; and the beauty of their work is instinct with gaiety, and floats in sparkling air. I do not expect these masters would particularly appreciate my defence, but I must avow an increasing attraction to their work.

  Winston Churchill

  Art, Air, Appreciate

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• I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this War, on which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.

  Siegfried Sassoon

  Military, War, Believe

  Siegfried Sassoon (1983). “Siegfried Sassoon's long journey: selections from the Sherston memoirs”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• European countries need to make more of a contribution in terms of defence capabilities. It is not fair?to keep turning to our ally in the United States to contribute military forces to problems which involve our own security.

  Geoff Hoon

  Country, Military, Allies

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• No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which render all intercourse of courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is a bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without hatred. War is never lenient but where it is wanton; when men are compelled to fight in self-defence, they must hate and avenge: this may be bad; but it is human nature.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Peace, War, Hate

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• When I'm shouting at the defence, subtitles come up in front of the goal.

  Shay Given

  Soccer, Football, Player

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• There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. Nothing is more keenly required than a defence of bores. When Byron divided humanity into the bores and bored, he omitted to notice that the higher qualities exist entirely in the bores, the lower qualities in the bored, among whom he counted himself. The bore, by his starry enthusiasm, his solemn happiness, may, in some sense, have proved himself poetical. The bored has certainly proved himself prosaic.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Boredom, Humanity, Quality

  1905 Heretics, ch.3.

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• Blackened skeleton arms of wood by the wayside pointed upward to the convent, as if the ghosts of former travellers, overwhelmed by the snow, haunted the scene of their distress. Icicle-hung caves and cellars built for refuges from sudden storms, were like so many whispers of the perils of the place; never-resting wreaths and mazes of mist wandered about, hunted by a moaning wind; and snow, the besetting danger of the mountain, against which all its defences were taken, drifted sharply down.

  Charles Dickens

  Taken, Skeletons, Wind

  Charles Dickens (2009). “The Complete Works of Charles Dickens: Little Dorrit”, p.448, Cosimo, Inc.

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• When Ronald Reagan's career in show business came to an end, he was hired to impersonate, first, a California governor and then an American president who would reduce taxes for his employers, the Southern and Western New Rich, much of whose money came from the defence industries. There is nothing unusual about this arrangement. All recent presidents have had their price-tags.

  Gore Vidal

  Price Tag, Careers, California

  Gore Vidal (2004). “Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia”, p.61, CLAIRVIEW BOOKS

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• What is slander? A verdict of "guilty" pronounced in the absence of the accused, with closed doors, without defence or appeal, by an interested and prejudiced judge.

  Philibert Joseph Roux

  Doors, Judging, Guilty

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• Raw in the fields the rude militia swarms, Mouth without hands; maintained at vast expense, In peace a charge, in war a weak defence.

  John Dryden

  Military, War, Hands

  John Dryden (1854). “Poetical Works”, p.143

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• The chief effect of talk on any subject is to strengthen one's own opinions, and, in fact, one never knows exactly what he does believe until he is warmed into conviction by the heat of attack and defence.

  Charles Dudley Warner

  Believe, Doe, Facts

  Charles Dudley Warner (1872). “Back-log studies and My summer in a garden”, p.83

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• We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may Yea, even when we know not, mix our spites And private hates with our defence of Heaven.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Hate, Self, Heaven

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Illustrated)”, p.1993, Delphi Classics

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• Yes, we were amazed when that happened. It was a real joke to us. Konrad Lueg and I did a Happening, and we used the phrase just for the Happening, to have a catchy name for it; and then it immediately got taken up and brought into use. There's no defence against that - and really it's no bad thing.

  Gerhard Richter

  Art, Real, Taken

  Gerhard Richter, Dietmar Elger, Hans-Ulrich Obrist (2009). “Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007”

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• If you look at things that really affect people's lives - sport, the arts, charities - they were always at the back of the queue for government money - health, social security, defence, pensions were all way ahead. And each of those areas - sports, the arts, the lottery - got relatively petty cash from the government.

  John Major

  Sports, Art, Government

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• Now that mobile phones and the internet have altered the epistemic selective landscape in a revolutionary way, every religious organisation must scramble to evolve defences or become extinct.

  Daniel Dennett

  Religious, Phones, Way

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• Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence.

  Thomas Paine

  Life, Military, Spirit

  Thomas Paine (1856). “Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America”, p.53

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• I understand all the problems for the Ministry of Defence, of course I do; working within a budget and trying to do so many things is not easy.

  Mike Jackson

  Trying, Ministry, Problem

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• I believe I understand anti-Semitism which is a very complex movement. I see it as a Jew, but without hatred or fear. I recognize what is anti-Semitism is rude jesting, vulgar jealousy of métier, hereditary prejudice; but also what can be considered as in fact legitimate defence.

  Theodor Herzl

  Believe, Hatred, Rude

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• Ten years ago U.S. defence investment represented almost half of all defence expenditure in the whole alliance. Today it is 75%. This increasing economic gap may also lead to an increasing technology gap which will almost hamper the inter-operability between our forces.

  Anders Fogh Rasmussen

  Technology, Years, May

  "Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen warns of 'two-tier' force" by Julian Borger, www.theguardian.com. June 15, 2011.

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• Enlightened self-interest from those involved in hydrocarbons should lead to the support of technologies enabling the clean use of hydrocarbons, such as carbon capture and storage, and not to the defence of deniers and cranks.

  Nicholas Stern

  Technology, Self, Support

  "The point of no return" by Nicholas Stern, www.theguardian.com. March 29, 2009.

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• I procrastinate in spades. In my defence, I also try to have all other distractions solved before I can concentrate on writing. My small theory is that to write for three hours, you need to feel like you have three days. To write for three days, you need to feel like you've got three weeks, and so on.

  Markus Zusak

  Writing, Trying, Three

  Interview with Sarah Kinson, www.theguardian.com. March 28, 2008.

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• I always make it a rule to let the other fellow fire first. If a man wants to fight, I argue the question with him and try to show him how foolish it would be. If he can't be dissuaded, why then the fun begins but I always let him have first crack. Then when I fire, you see, I have the verdict of self-defence on my side. I know that he is pretty certain in his hurry, to miss. I never do.

  Ben Thompson

  Fun, Fighting, Men

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• There is one key area in which Zuma has made no attempt at reconciliation whatsoever: criminal justice and security. The ministers of justice, defence, intelligence (now called "state security" in a throwback to both apartheid and the ANC's old Stalinist past), police and communications are all die-hard Zuma loyalists. Whatever their line functions, they will also play the role they have played so ably to date: keeping Zuma out of court - and making sure the state serves Zuma as it once did Mbeki.

  Mark Gevisser

  Communication, Past, Play

  "Can Zuma hold a nation together?" by Mark Gevisser, www.theguardian.com. May 12, 2009.

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