"May God have mercy on my enemies, because I won't." -General George S. Patton Jr. "It is well that war is so terrible, or we would grow too fond of it." -Robert E. Lee "Strength lies not in defense but in attack." -Adolf Hitler "To have good soldiers, a nation must always be at war." -Napoleon Bonaparte "War is the continuation of policy by other means." -Karl von Clausewitz "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away." -General Douglas MacArthur "We gained about 20 000 km˛, just enough to bury our dead." -Russian General after the winter war. 50 000 finns killed, 800,000 russians killed in 105 days. "Gentlemen, you have fought like lions and been led by donkeys." -Erwin Rommel, to British prisoners after the fall of Tobruk "Before the battle, plans are everything. When the battle commences, they are nothing." -Dwight D Eisenhower "We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us and may I say across the havoc of war, a great General." -Winston Churchill, House of Commons, January 1942, on Rommel "Out in the front every one is holding out, Herr Oberstleutnant. Every one. My grenadiers and my engineers and my tank crews-- they're all holding their ground. Not a single man is leaving his post. Not one! They're lying in their foxholes mute and silent, for they are dead. Dead! Do you understand? You may report to the Field Marshal that the Panzer Lehr Division is annihilated." -Generalleutnant "Fritz" Bayerlein "The Germans are staying in there just by the guts of their soldiers. We outnumber them 10 to 1 in infantry, 50 to 1 in artillery, and by an infinite number in the air." -General Barton, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, Normandy "If we do not succeed in our mission to close the seas to the Allies, or in the first 48 hours to throw them back, their invasion will be successful... In the absence of strategic reserves and due to the total inadequacy of our navy and of our air force, we will have lost the war." -Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of German Army Group B on the Normandy coast, after the start of the landings "The news couldn't be better. As long as they were in Britain we couldn’t get at them. Now we have them where we can destroy them." -Adolf Hitler's reaction when informed that the D-Day landings had begun "You are about to embark on the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of liberty loving people everywhere will march with you." -General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, in an address to troops An English captain: You Frenchmen fight for money, we Englishmen fight for honor!" Surcouf (French privateer): "Monsieur, un homme se bat pour ce qu'il n'a pas". ("A man fight for what he don't have"). "My only fear, is that the Zulu's won't fight." -Frederick Augustus Thesiger, Lord Chelmsford. "Need breaks law, not only the laws of men but also the laws of God." -Gustav I of Sweden "In the long run luck is given only to the efficient." -Helmuth von Moltke "The causes of events are ever more interesting than the events themselves." -Marcus T. Cicero "History is the devil's scripture." -Lord Byron "Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "Mes amis; si j'avance, suivez-moi! Si je recule, tuez-moi! Si je meurs, vengez-moi!" ("Friends; follow me if I advance! Kill me if I retreat! Avenge me if I die!") -Henri du Vergier, comte de la Rochejaquelein "I will say to the house as I’ve said to those who joined the government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." -Winston Churchill, First speech as Prime Minister, 13 May 1940, House of Commons We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight in the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing-grounds, we shall fight in the fields and the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." -Winston Churchill, Speech, 5 June, 1940, House of Commons "It is far easier to make war than peace." -Georges Clemenceau "America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of Civilisation." -Georges Clemenceau "War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men." -Georges Clemenceau "They couldn't hit an elephant at that dist-...." -Major General John Sedgwick's Last Words (American Civil War) "Je vous réponderais par la bouche de mes canons!" ("I'll answer you with the thunder of my cannons!") -Frontenac, 1690 "General Lee, I have no division!" -George Pickett, after his famous charge "Now the Italians have joined the war on the German side. But that is only fair since we had them the last time." -Winston Churchill "Bavaria is the link between Austria and the rest of the world." -Paul von Hindenburg "Where they burn books they will burn people as well." -Heinrich Heine "It's the invasion! There must be ten thousand ships out there!" *What way are these ships of yours headed?* "Right for me!" -Werner Pluskat, June 6, 1944 "I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a King of England too." -Elizabeth I to her troops on the eve of the Spanish Armada, 1588 "Oh God, let me not be disgraced in my old days. Or if Thou wilt not help me, do not help those other scoundrels, but leave us to finish it ourselves." -Leopold I von Anhalt-Dessau, prayer before the Battle of Kesselsdorff "My men are too exhausted to defend, but they might be able to attack." -Captain Ericsson, commander of the Finnish Bicycle Battalion 7, to Colonel Talvela at Tolvajärvi, Finland. This was his status report on December 8, 1939, after five days of continuous delaying action against superior Soviet troops. "Most people spend their entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference to this world. The Marines don't have that problem." -President Ronald Reagan, 1985 "The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years." -James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy (February 23, 1945) "All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us... they can't get away this time." -Lieutenant General Lewis B."Chesty" Puller (when surrounded by 8 enemy divisions) "If you have sacrificed my nation to preserve the peace of the world, I will be the first to applaud you. But if not, gentlemen, God help your souls." -Jan Masaryk, Czech Minister (1938) "It was as if angels were pushing..." -Adolf Galland on the Me-262 "You can be sure of the French always beating any number of Germans who come into the field against them. They will never be beaten by any nation but the English, for to every other nation they are, in efficiency and intelligence, decidely superior." -Matthew Arnold, British poet at the outset of the Franco-Prussian War "It is a good day to die." -Crazy Horse, on being told that he and his people must return to the reservation. "Don't one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes." -Colonel William Prescott, Battle of Bunker Hill, 1775 N.B.: A lesser-known version of this quotation was supposedly said by Frederick the Great at Prague in 1757: "By push of bayonets, no firing till you see the whites of their eyes." "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" -David G. Farragut "I have not yet begun to fight!" -John Paul Jones "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." -Sir Edward Grey (August, 1914) "To stand and be still, to the Birkenhead Drill, is a damn tough bullet to chew" -Rudyard Kipling, on the loss of the troopship Birkenhead, which involved the officers and soldiers standing in ranks as the ship foundered and the few boats available only able to rescue the women and children. No man, according to the story, broke ranks. "I see no signal." -Lord Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen as he put his telescope up to his blind eye. "Hello, I'd like to send this letter to the Prussian consulate in Siam by Aeromail. Hmm... am I too late for the 4:30 autogyro?" -Montgomery Burns "A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments." –Aristotle "As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it." –John Adams "I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter." –Winston Churchill "Please tell me you’re a Republican." – Ronald Reagan to his surgeon after being shot by John Hinkley "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take everything you have." –Winston Churchill "To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." –Clarence Thomas "To the meaningless French idealisms of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, we present the German realities of Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery." -Prince Bernhard von Bulow "We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy." -Winston Churchill to the Canadian Parliament, December 30, 1941. "When I warned them that Britain would fight on alone, whatever they did, their Generals told their Prime Minister and his divided cabinet that in three weeks, England would have her neck wrung like a chicken - Some chicken! Some neck!" -Winston Churchill, same speech. Following this speech the famous Karsh photograph was taken. "To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war." -Winston Churchill "We shall not go to Canossa." -Bismarck, 1872 "I wanted a nation and they gave me the Belgians." -Leopold I von Saxen-Coburg-Gotha, first king of Belgium "You British are too arrogant to even understand how stupid you are." -Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck "If there is a God, then Richelieu has much to answer for. If there is not, then he has done very well." -Pope Urban VIII, on hearing of Richelieu's death. "I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need." -Francois-Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues "Canada was won in the hills of Germany." -Pitt on the Seven Years War "It's very bad. I will lose my job." -East German border guard asked by the BBC for his thoughts on the bringing down of the Berlin wall... "If you see a white plane it´s American, if you see a black plane it´s RAF. If you see no planes at all it´s the Luftwaffe." -German soldier on the Western Front, 1944 "I'm pleased to tell you today that I´ve signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." -President Ronald Reagan, audio test before speech, 11 August 1984, Santa Barbara "It's nothing." -Archduke Franz Ferdinand's last words after being shot in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. "I fear we have only awakened a sleeping giant, and his reaction will be terrible." -Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamato, referring to the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which he helped to plan. "Two kinds of people are staying on this beach, the dead and those who are going to die." -US Army Colonel George Taylor urging his troops forward on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. "If only I had known, I would have become a watchmaker." -Albert Einstein, on his role in helping develop the atomic bomb, 1955. "Let them see what they've done. I want them to see." -Jacqueline Kennedy, referring to the blood on her pink suit the day of the Dallas Assassination, November 22, 1963. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from to time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -Thomas Jefferson "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." -Oscar Wilde "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." -Martin Luther King, in a civil-rights speech in Washington, August 28, 1963. "People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook." -US President Richard Nixon, denying involvement in the Watergate scandal in a 1973 speech. "First, we are going to cut it off and then we are going to kill it." -Former US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Colin Powell, on the Iraqi Army after it invaded Kuwait, January 1991. "You can no longer retreat across the Volga. There is only one road, the road that leads forward. Stalingrad will be saved by you, or be wiped out with you." -Russian orders to the troops in Stalingrad. "The people want to exercise power, but what on earth would they do with it if it were given to them." -Vladimir Lenin, in "The State and Revolution", 1917. "Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by Naval and Air Forces of the Empire of Japan." -US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, December 8, 1941. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." -Franklin Delano Roosevelt "How can you be expected to govern a country that has 246 kinds of cheese" -Charles de Gaulle, President of France, 1962. "The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a smaller one." -Adolf Hitler, from "Mein Kampf", 1925. "If you don't like us, don't accept our invitations and don't invite us to come to see you. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you." -Soviet leader Nikita Chrustjev, in a speech to Western diplomats in Moscow, November 18, 1956. "We don't want apartheid liberalized. We want it dismantled. You can't improve something that is intrinsically evil." -South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 1985. "... from the moment the overwhelming industrial capacity of the United States made itself felt in any theater of war, there was no longer any chance of ultimate victory in that theatre... tactical skill could only postpone the collapse..." -Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander German Africa Corps, after his defeat in North Africa. "This is a beautiful day after a long voyage, but we are only at a way station. We are not at the end of our way." -Former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, on the day the Berlin wall fell, November, 1989. "All the former prisoners are now the government." -US Ambassador to Czechoslovakia Shirley Temple Black, on the new Czech leadership, January, 1990. "We are truly sorry for what has happened." -Baruch Bar Lev, Israel Attaché of Defense, when talking to Ugandan President Idi Amin by phone on July 4, 1976. Shortly after this conversation Idi Amin learned that Israelic Special Forces had killed all seven of the airplane-hijackers and twenty of Amin's soldiers during the rescue of all 105 hostages of the Air France aircraft, which terrorists had hijacked on June 28, 1976. "Whether or not America enters the war is a matter of indifference..." -Adolf Hitler to Benito Mussolini, June 21, 1941. "It is bluff. They can make cars and refrigerators, but not aircraft." -Reichsmarschall Herman Göring in regard to American industrial capabilities in 1941. "Where is the prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for its defense, as that 10,000 men descending from the clouds, might not in many places, do an infinite deal of mischief before a force could be brought together to repel them?" -Benjamin Franklin, American statesman, publisher and inventor, 1784. "... the only person who feared no one. He was not afraid of Stalin." -Marshal Semyon Timoshenko's assessment of Marshal Georgi Zhukov, Commander in Chief of the Western Front. "Success is not in never failing, but to rise whenever you fail." -Chinese proverb "It must be accepted as a principle that the rifle, effective as it is, cannot replece the effect produced by the speed of the horse, the magnetism of the charge, and the terror of cold steel." -British Cavalry Training Manual, 1907 "The men are in splendid spirits. Several have said that they have never been so instructed and informed of the nature of the operation before them. The wire has never been so well cut, nor the artillery preparations so thorough." -General Haig, 1 July 1916, before the Somme. "Are you aware it is private property? Why you will be asking me to bomb Essen next." -Sir Kinsley Wood, Sec. of Air, 1939, on a plan to burn the Black Forest. "The machine gun is a much overrated weapon, two per battalion is more than sufficient." -General Haig, 1915 "The Ardennes are impenetrable" -Field Marshall Petain, 1934 "The duty of the men at Stalingrad is to be dead." -Adolf Hitler, Jan 1943 "I will return!" -General Douglas MacArthur, after being forced to flee the Philippines "I am the scourge of God. Heaven had delivered you into my hands that I may punish you for your sins, for you have sinned greatly." -Genghis Khan to the citizens of Bukhara, before ordering his troops to level the city. "I would like to paint as much of the world British Red as possible." -Cecil Rhodes "You don't have a peaceful revolution. You don't have a turn-the-other-cheek revolution. There's no such thing as a nonviolent revolution. Revolution is bloody. Revolution is hostile. Revolution knows no compromise. Revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way." -Malcolm X "Cogito Ergo Sum." -Descartes "Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains." -Karl Marx "Well, I think if you say you're going to do something and don't do it, that's trustworthiness." -George W. Bush "A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon." -Napoleon Bonaparte "Military justice is to justice what military music is to music." -Groucho Marx "Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms." -Groucho Marx "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both." -Niccolo Machiavelli "If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew." -Albert Einstein "I don't belong to any organized party; I'm a Democrat." -Roy Rodgers "Physicists have known sin." -J. Robert Oppenheimer "Still, there's no way of avoiding the advance of years except by dying and there's no great fun in that." -Isaac Asimov "The Canadians are Montgomery's best soldiers, and they're (North) Americans!" -Major General George Patton "These Germans never reckoned with my American ingenuity. That's why they lost the Civil War." -Johnny Bravo "And then I met the Special Forces guys, who are like heavily-armed Amish." -Robin Williams "The Neapolitans lost very little honor in this engagement, for they had but little honor to lose. But they did lose all that they had." -Horatio Nelson, writing back home after watching the Army of Naples routed by a French army a tenth its size "Russia is a country with an unpredictable past." -M. Zadornov "The world is my country, all mankind my countrymen and to do good my only religion." -Thomas Paine "A King always has in his heart the best interests of his subjects, a tyrant has only his own best interests at heart." -Erik XIV "Quyet Chien - Quyet Thang" ("To fight - and to win") -Vietcong motto "I am the world's third largest fool. The other two were Christ and Don Quixote." -Simón Bolívar "We fight, get beat, rise and fight again." -Major General Nathaniel Greene "I send you the world, the flesh and the devil and I send you no more, because, damn it, there is no more." -Juan Martín de Pueyrrdón, to José de San Martín "Opposition, det är konspiration". ("Opposition, that's conspiracy.") -Karl XIV Johan, king of Sweden "I have done my job... You can have the glory that follows. I am going home." -José de San Martín, to Simón Bolívar "Let every nation know... that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty." -John F. Kennedy "Don't you know, my son, with how little reason the world is governed." -Axel Oxenstierna, Swedish chancellor "Historical phenomena always occur twice - first as tragedy, second as farce." -Karl Marx "Nothing is more painful than to be defeated by ridiculous enemies." -Voltaire "I fear three averse newspapers more than thousand bayonets." -Napoléon Bonaparte "What a pity that everybody who really can govern the country work as cab drivers or barbers." -George Burns "History teaches us that we learn nothing from history." -Friedrich Hegel "War is easy to start but difficult to end." -Gaius Sallustinus "When war is over there are many brave ones." -Russian proverb "A bad general is better than two good ones." -Napoléon Bonaparte "It is magnificent, but it is not war." -General Bosquet, about the Charge of the Light Brigade "Aren't you over-cautious, when you assume you can't do what the enemy is doing all the time." -Abraham Lincoln, to Major General George Brinton McClellan "Belive me, Lang, the first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive... the fate of Germany depends on the outcome... for the allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest day." -Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, to is aide, April 22, 1944 "We can hold it [the Arnhem Bridge] for four [days]. But sir, I think we might be going a bridge too far." -Lieutenant General Frederick Browning to Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery about Operation Market Garden "There is nothing so exhilarating than being shot at and missed." -Winston Churchill "Where wisdom is called for, force is of little use." -Herodotus "Patriotism ruins history." -Goethe "You may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman, or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together - what do you get? The sum of their fears." -Winston Churchill "There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy." -George Washington "It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war." -JFK "The Yankees got all the smart ones and look where it got them." -General Pickett "The art of war is simple enough; Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can and strike him as hard as you can and keep moving." -General Ulysses S. Grant "In war there is no substitute for victory." -General Douglas MacArthur "Nine times of ten an army has been destroyed because its supply lines have been severed" -General MacArthur, August 1950 to the Joint Chiefs of Staff "We won't just shoot the bastard, but rip out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks." -General George Patton "Maybe there are 5 000, maybe 10 000 Nazi bastards in their concrete foxholes before the Third Army. Now if Ike stops holding Monty's hand and gives me the supplies, I'll go through the Sigfried Line like shit through a goose." -General George Patton "The best tank terrain is that without anti-tank weapons." -Russian military doctrine. "The only thing that will happen is that the vessel [sub] will sink, and suffocate the crew." -H. G. Wells "The Lord God is my Armour!" -Gustavus Adolphus, refusing the steel body armour offered by his aides at the Battle of Lützen (where he was killed), 6 November 1632. "Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student. At least they can find Kuwait. " -A. Whitney Brown "Gentlemen, we are being killed on the beaches. Lets go inland and be killed." -General Norman Cota, Omaha Beach, 1944 "We are outnumbered, there is only one thing to do. We must attack!" -Admiral Andrew Cunningham, 11 November 1940. Before attacking the Italian fleet at Taranto "I'd rather have a German Division in front of me than a French one behind." -General George S. Patton "The Pope! how many divisions has he got?" -Stalin In 1935, a French visitor asked Soviet leader Josef Stalin if he thought Pope Pius XI might prove to be an ally. "Tell my son Josef that he will meet my divisions in eternity." -Reply from the Pope when he heard the story years later. "We do not destroy religion by destroying superstition." -Cicero "The Turks are the people of the wrath of God." -Martin Luther "You tell me Grant is always drunk? Fine. Find out what he drinks and send a case to all of my other generals!" -Abraham Lincoln "Mon centre cčde du terrain, ma droite se replie. Situation excellente. J'attaque!" (My center is giving ground, my right is retreating. Situation excellent. To the attack!) -Foch, September 6, 1914 at 1st Marne. "The Lybian army is capable of destroying America and breaking its nose." -Muammar Qaddafi "We should declare war on North Vietnam... We could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas." -Ronald Reagan, 1965 "A German field marshal does not commit suicide with a pair of nair scissors". -Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, commander 6th German Army, at Stalingrad "A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila." -Mitch Ratliffe "I believe that defenses of the sort you want to throw up are bad for the moral of troops and civillians". -Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, Singapore, December 1941. Shortly before Japan inflicted the most humiliating defeat ever suffered by Britain by walking down the Malayan peninsula which lacked any fortifications. "I am bored. The great things are done. The German Reich is made." -Bismarck after the German unification of 1871 "Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans." -Bismarck's prediction on what would provoke the next war "God favors fools, little children and the United States of America." -Bismarck "Those who love laws or sausages should not watch either being made." -Bismarck "Republicans believe every day is 4th of July, but Democrats believe every day is April 15." -Ronald Reagan "How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." -Ronald Reagan "The white man made many promises, more than I can remember, but he kept only one, he promised to take our land, and he took it". -Chief Joseph of the Nez Pierce "Ille faciet!" ("He'll do it!") -Charles IX of Sweden about his son, Gustavus Adolphus "Divide et impera." ("Divide and conquer.") -Louis XI of France "Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant." ("Hell Caesar, those who are about to die salute you.") -Gladiators entering the arena "Noli turbare circulos meos!" ("Don't disturb my circles!") -Archimedes last words at Syracuse, 212 B.C.; to invading Romans who slained him "Non possumus." ("We cannot.") -Pope Pius IX about relinquish a part of the Papal States "[Quidquid id est,] timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." ("[Whatever it may be,] I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts.") -Laokoon, about the Trojan Horse "Vincere scis, Hannibal, victoria uti nescis." ("To win, you understand, Hannibal, but to make use of your victory you don't understand.") -Maharbal to Hannibal after the victory at Cannae, 216 B.C. "Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." -Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." -Sören Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855) "The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." -Salvador Dali (1904-1989) "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." -Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." -Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953 "Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." -Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) "A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation." -H. H. Munro (Saki) (1870-1916) "University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." -Henry Kissinger (1923-) "No Sane man will dance." -Cicero (106-43 B.C.) "Vote early and vote often." -Al Capone (1899-1947) "Men are not disturbed by things, but the view they take of things." -Epictetus (55-135 A.D.) "What about things like bullets?" -Herb Kimmel, Behavioralist, Professor of Psychology, upon hearing the above quote (1981) "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke (1729-1797) "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something." -Pancho Villa (1877-1923), last words "Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure." -Ross MacDonald (1915-1983) "There's nothing wrong with south Florida today that a Force Five hurricane couldn't fix." -Carl Hiaasen "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money." –Alexis de Tocqueville "He who would give up freedom for security deserves neither." -Benjamin Franklin "War is fear cloaked in courage." -General William Westmoreland "Vietnam was the first war ever fought without censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind." -General William Westmoreland "The worst crimes were dared by a few, willed by more and tolerated by all." -Tacitus "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official..." -Theodore Roosevelt "Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." -Noam Chomsky "Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions." -Ulysses S. Grant "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." -Voltaire "It would be easier to subjugate the entire universe through force than the minds of a single village." -Voltaire "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -Voltaire "Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent." -Issac Asimov "Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood." -Mahatma Gandhi "Let not your zeal to share your principles entice you beyond your borders." -Marquis de Sade "Dulce bellum inexpertis." ("War is delightful to the inexperienced"). -Erasmus "All war is based on deception." -Sun Tzu "The supreme excellence is to subde the armies of your enemies without even having to fight them." -Sun Tzu "Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich." -Sir Peter Ustinov "The greatest crime since World War II has been U.S. foreign policy." -Ramsey Clark "I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security." -Jim Garrison "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." -John 8:32 "If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the army." -Frederick the Great "In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons." -Herodotus "In war, truth is the first casualty." -Aeschylus "At least we're getting the kind of experience we need for the next war." -Allen Dulles "War is the unfolding of miscalculations." -Barbara Tuchman "War is mainly a catalogue of blunders." -Winston Churchill "War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus." -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry "Name me an emperor who was ever struck by a cannonball." -Charles V of France "You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians." -Barry Goldwater "The coward threatens when he is safe." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto." -Thomas Jefferson "There never was a good war or a bad peace." -Benjamin Franklin "I think war is a dangerous place." -George W. Bush "I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." -George W. Bush, Speech at the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development in Wash. DC, 6/18/02. "A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves." -German proverb "When I was a boy we didn't wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner." -Lyndon B. Johnson "I have asked the Commanding General, General Westmoreland, what more he needs to meet this mounting aggression. He has told me. We will meet his needs." -Lyndon B. Johnson, TV-speech, 1965 "I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from." -Eddie Izzard "The Pope is guarded by the Swiss guard who stand proudly in pajamas and silly hats." -Eddie Izzard "Goodbye! We give up! You win. We've left you a huge f**k off horse...as per usual." -Eddie Izzard, depicting the end of the Trojan War "Because we all know one of the main factors of war is the element of surprise. And what could be more surprising than the First Batallion Transvestite Brigade? Airborne Wing." -Eddie Izzard "-What is it Lt. Sebastian? -It’s the Rebels, sir. They’re here. -My God, man. Do they want tea? -No, I think there after something more than that, sir. I don’t know what it is, but they’ve brought a flag." -Eddie Izzard, British actors playing all the bad guys on the Death Star "If you have two religions in your land, the two will cut each other's throats; but if you have thirty religions, they will dwell in peace." -Francois Marie Arouet "En trasig säkring kan fĺ AK5:ans granatkastare att avfyras när du minst väntar det. Det gör dig impopulär bland dem som finns kvar av din pluton." –Arméns instruktionsblad "Förebyggande Underhĺll" "There are some defeats more triumphant than victories." -Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592) "There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." -Douglas Adams, author of "The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy" "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." -Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642) "He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare. And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere." -Ali ibn-Abi-Talib "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names." -John F. Kennedy "Use your enemy's hand to catch a snake." -Persian Proverb "I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room." -Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662) "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." -Bill Cosby "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." -Sir Winston Churchill "Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure." -William Saroyan (1908 - 1981) "Go through your phone book, call people and ask them to drive you to the airport. The ones who will drive you are your true friends. The rest aren't bad people; they're just acquaintances." -Jay Leno "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." -George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) "I could prove God statistically." -George Gallup (1901 - 1984) "If God lived on earth, people would break his windows." -Jewish Proverb "God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire (1694 - 1778) "If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank." -Woody Allen "For four-fifths of our history, our planet was populated by pond scum." -J. W. Schopf "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." -Sir Winston Churchill "Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from." -Al Franken, "Oh, the Things I Know", 2002 "The big thieves hang the little ones." -Czech Proverb "Bob, take a telegram: 'Mr. C. Chaplin, Sennett Studios, Hollywood, California. Congrats. Stop. Have found only person in world less funny than you. Stop. Name Baldrick. Stop. Yours E. Blackadder. Stop.' Oh, and put a P.S.: 'Please, please, please. Stop.'." -Rowan Atkinson as Blackadder in Blackadder Goes Forth, "Plan C: Major Star" "We received a telegram this morning from Mr. Chaplin himself at Sennett Studios. 'Twice nightly screening of my films in trenches: excellent idea. Stop. But must insist E. Blackadder be projectionist. Stop.' Oh, 'P.S. Don't let him ever. Stop.'" -Tim McInnerny as Captain Darling in Blackadder Goes Forth, "Plan C: Major Star" [Actors Mossop and Keanrick haughtily enter in the middle of a conversation.] Mossop: ... lest you continue in your quotation, and mention the name of the Scottish play. Keanrick: Oh-ho-ho... never fear, I shan't do that. Blackadder: By the Scottish play, I assume you mean Macbeth. Mossop, Keanrick: Aaah! [The actors launch into a bizarre "pattycake" routine while reciting...] Mossop, Keanrick: "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, pluck will make amends." [... and finish by tweaking each other's noses.] Mossop, Keanrick: Aaah! Blackadder: What was that? Keanrick: We were exorcising evil spirits. Being but a mere butler, you will not know the great theatre tradition that one does never speak the name of the Scottish play. Blackadder: What, "Macbeth"? Mossop, Keanrick: Aaah! "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, pluck will make amends." Aaah-haa! Blackadder: Good lord, you mean you have to do that every time I say "Macbeth"? Mossop, Keanrick: Aaah! "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, pluck will make amends." Aaah-aaah-haa! Mossop: Will you please stop saying that! Always call it "the Scottish play". Blackadder: So you want me to say, "the Scottish play"? Mossop, Keanrick: Yes! Blackadder: Rather than "Macbeth"? Mossop, Keanrick: Aaaaah! "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, Pluck will make amends." Aaah-haa! Oww! [Prince George enters.] Prince George: For heaven's sake, what is all this hullabaloo, all this shouting and screaming and yelling blue murder? Why, it's like that play we saw the other day, what was it called... uh... Blackadder: "Macbeth", sir? Mossop, Keanrick: Aaaaah! "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, pluck will make amends." Aaah! Oooh!! Prince George: No, no, no, no, it was... it was called "Julius Caesar". Blackadder: Oh yes, of course. "Julius Caesar"... Not "Macbeth". Mossop, Keanrick: Aah! "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, pluck will make amends." Owwww! Blackadder: Are you sure you want these people to stay? [Later...] Keanrick: From a play connected with Scotland... Blackadder: [having just walked in] That's Macbeth, isn't it? Mossop, Keanrick: Aaah! -Conversation from Blackadder the Third, "Sense and Senility" "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." -US Declaration of Independence "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry "He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife." -Douglas Adams "A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." -Douglas Adams "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." -Douglas Adams "If it's the Psychic Network why do they need a phone number?" -Robin Williams "The only people flying to Europe will be terrorists, so it will be, 'Will you be sitting in armed or unarmed?'" -Robin Williams "We had gay burglars the other night. They broke in and rearranged the furniture." -Robin Williams "Be the chief but never the lord." -Lao Tzu "He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know." -Lao Tzu "Opportunities multiply as they are seized." -Sun Tzu "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." -Sun Tzu