Military Quotes - Page 39

• The Second Amendment reveals a profound principle of American government - the principle of civilian ascendency over the military.

  William O. Douglas

  Men, America, Profound

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• I have not the smallest doubt that, if we had a purely democratic government here, the effect would be the same. Either the poor would plunder the rich, and civilisation would perish; or order and property would be saved by a strong military government, and liberty would perish.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Strong, Order, Government

  "The Letters of Thomas Babington Macaulay" edited by Thomas Pinney, Vol. 6, p. 94, 1981.

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• The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was the work of a wayward imagination brought to the end of its tether by political disgust and personal confusion. Fifty years on, I don't associate the book with anything that ever happened to me, save for one wordless encounter at London airport when a worn-out, middle-aged military kind of man in a stained raincoat slammed a handful of mixed foreign change on to the bar and in gritty Irish accents ordered himself as much Scotch as it would buy. In that moment, Alec Leamas was born. Or so my memory, not always a reliable informant, tells me.

  John le Carre

  Memories, Book, Men

  "John le Carré: 'I was a secret even to myself'". www.theguardian.com. April 12, 2013.

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• There is a system of terroristic states-the real terror network-that has spread throughout Latin America and elsewhere over the past several decades, and which is deeply rooted in the corporate interest and sustaining political-military-financial propaganda mechanisms of the United States and its allies in the Free World.

  Edward S. Herman

  Latin, Real, Past

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• A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but presses unswervingly on towards his mark.

  Marcus Aurelius

  War, Men, Evil

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• Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can complel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Wisdom, Peace, Freedom

  Farewell Address, delivered 17 January 1961

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• You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military has changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.

  Barack Obama

  Horse, Land, Navy

  Barack Obama's remarks in the Third Presidential Debate at the Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. October 23, 2012.

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• There was an embarrassing moment in the White House earlier today. They were looking around while searching for George Bush's military records. They actually found some old Al Gore ballots.

  David Letterman

  White, House, Records

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• Ironically, the possibility that the president dodged his military service has increased his approval ratings with Democrats by 80 percent.

  Craig Kilborn

  Approval Rating, President, Possibility

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• [Addressing a group of military officers:] Are you a feminist? Oh ... wrong question. I should have asked, 'Are you a father?' When your daughter loses her job to a clearly less-qualified man, you will discover you are a feminist.

  Estelle Ramey

  Daughter, Jobs, Father

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• The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God. But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing than worshipping ... 'Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god.

  C. S. Lewis

  War, Thinking, Church Service

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• Awareness is not the same as thought. It lies beyond thinking, although it makes no use of thinking, honoring it's value and it's power. Awareness is more like a vessel which can hold and contain our thinking, helping us to see and know our thought as thought rather than getting caught up in them as reality.

  Jon Kabat-Zinn

  Wisdom, War, Lying

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• (God) gives the weak a weapon for self-defense that the strong, despite his military and nuclear arsenals, can do nothing against. There are clerics who condemn this and even say that these are suicide operations that are not allowed in Islam.

  Yusuf al-Qaradawi

  Suicide, Strong, Self

  "Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi in Favor of Suicide Operations". MEMRI TV, April 2004.

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• To those who charge that liberalism has been tried and found wanting, I answer that the failure is not in the idea, but in the course of recent history. The New Deal was ended by World War II. The New Frontier was closed by Berlin and Cuba almost before it was opened. And the Great Society lost its greatness in the jungles of Indochina.

  George McGovern

  War, Failure, Greatness

  1973 Lecture at Oxford University, 21 Jan.

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• And meteorologists have nothing to tell people in Philo, who know perfectly well that the real story is that to the west, between us and the Rockies, there is basically nothing tall, and that weird zephyrs and stirs joined breezes and gusts and thermals and downdrafts and whatever out over Nebraska and Kansas and moved like streams into rivers and jets at and military fronts that gathered like avalanches and roared in reverse down pioneer oxtrails, toward our own personal unsheltered asses.

  David Foster Wallace

  Real, Rivers, Kansas

  "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" by David Foster Wallace, www.nytimes.com. 1997.

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• In Iraq and Syria, American leadership - including our military power - is stopping ISIL's advance, instead of getting dragged into another ground war in the Middle East, we are leading a broad coalition, including Arab nations, to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group.

  Barack Obama

  Leadership, War, Iraq

  Sixth Presidential State of the Union Address, delivered 20 January 2015

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• The authorization I propose would provide the flexibility to conduct ground combat operations in other more limited circumstances, such as rescue operations involving U.S. or coalition personnel or the use of special operations forces to take military action against ISIL leadership, it would also authorize the use of U.S. forces in situations where ground combat operations are not expected or intended, such as intelligence collection and sharing, missions to enable kinetic strikes or the provision of operational planning and other forms of advice and assistance to partner forces.

  Barack Obama

  Leadership, Advice, Special

  "Obama opens door to 'limited' ground combat operations against ISIS", www.foxnews.com. February 11, 2015.

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• Athens' biggest worry was the sheer recklessness of its own democratic government. A simple majority of the citizenry, urged on and incensed by clever demagogues, might capriciously send out military forces in unnecessary and exhausting adventures.

  Thucydides

  Clever, Adventure, Simple

  Thucydides, Victor Davis Hanson, Robert B. Strassler (2008). “The Landmark Thucydides”, p.19, Simon and Schuster

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• I would hope that wherever I go I bring good news - that's what that word means, right? It began with the first followers of Jesus taking a Roman military propaganda term and co-opting it for their own subversive purposes, insisting that the world isn't made better through coercive military violence but through sacrificial love. How great is that!? Unfortunately this word has been hijacked in several years for other purposes but no worries, we're taking it back.

  Rob Bell

  Jesus, Mean, Years

  Source: missionaryrenegade2013.blogspot.com

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• Israel is in the midst of a difficult military and diplomatic campaign against terrorists. An organisation that works to prove allegations that Israel is committing war crimes should be so good as to do so with its own resources and not with civilian national service volunteers and state funds.

  Uri Orbach

  War, Israel, Volunteer

  "Israel bans national service with rights group B'Tselem in Gaza row" by Orlando Crowcroft, www.theguardian.com. August 15, 2014.

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• At a time when we must seek to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the local community, I am deeply concerned that the deployment of military equipment and vehicles sends a conflicting message.

  Eric Holder

  Law, Deployment, Community

  "Ferguson violence: Critics rip police tactics, use of military equipment" by Josh Levs, www.cnn.com. August 15, 2014.

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• If worse comes to worst, I say clearly - a soldier must follow military orders.

  Naftali Bennett

  Order, Soldier, Worst

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• A sustainable economy represents nothing less than a higher social order one as concerned with future generations as with our own, and more focused on the health of the planet and the poor than on material acquisitions and military might. While it is a fundamentally new endeavor, with many uncertainties, it is far less risky than continuing with business as usual.

  Lester R. Brown

  Order, Environmental, Might

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• The military is the largest polluter in the country, and so you have a lot of military waste contaminating reservations - as, for example, on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, where 5,000 sheep died in some kind of experimental military nerve gas test 10 years ago. Many of our communities are dealing with that kind of waste, and an absence of political will to clean them up.

  Winona LaDuke

  Country, Skulls, Sheep

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• Democrats and Republicans alike support our military personnel.

  John Spratt

  Support, Republican, Democrat

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