I was too weak to defend, so I attacked.
~ Robert E. Lee
Strength lies not in defense but in attack.
~ Adolf Hitler, in Mein Kampf
We are so outnumbered there’s only one thing to do. We must attack.
~ Andrew Browne Cunningham, before attacking the Italian fleet at Taranto on November 11, 1940
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“Let there be light!” said God,
and there was light.
“Let there be blood!” said man,
and there’s a sea.
~ Lord Byron
Once more into the breach, dear friends,
Once more; …
~ William Shakespeare, in King Henry V
* * * * *
And say not thou “My country right or wrong”
Nor shed thy blood for an unhallowed cause.
~ John Quincy Adams, in Congress, Slavery and an Unjust War
The cannon thunders… limbs fly in all directions… one can hear the groans of victims and the howling of those performing the sacrifice… it’s Humanity in search of happiness.
~ Charles Baudelaire
A baboon in a forest is a matter of legitimate speculation; a baboon in a zoo is an object of public curiosity; but a baboon in your wife’s bed is a cause of the gravest concern.
~ Winston Churchill
Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuvre. The greater the general, the more he contributes in manoeuvre, the less he demands in slaughter.
~ Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 2
Never believe any war will be smooth and easy or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events… incompetent or arrogant commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant fortune, ugly surprise, awful miscalculations. … Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.
~ Winston Churchill as quoted in This Time It’s Our War by Leonard Fein
Nothing is more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.
~ Winston Churchill, in The Malakand Field Force
I think a curse should rest on me — because I love this war. I know it’s smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment — and yet — I can’t help it — I enjoy every second of it.
~ Winston Churchill, in a letter to a friend, 1916
Blood is the price of victory.
~ Karl von Clausewitz, in On War
In peace sons bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury their sons.
~ Croesus
Public opinion wins wars.
~ Dwight David Eisenhower
We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Action is the governing rule of war.
~ Ferdinand Foch, in Precepts
The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.
~ David Friedman
War makes thieves and peace hangs them.
~ George Herbert
You will kill ten of our men, and we will kill one of yours, and in the end it will be you who tire of it.
~ Ho Chi Minh
So ends the bloody business of the day.
~ Homer, in Odyssey
Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.
~Andrew Jackson
It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.
~ Thomas Jefferson
I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
~ Thomas Jefferson
War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
~ Thomas Jefferson
The first casualty when war comes is truth.
~ Hiram Johnson
We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace.
~ Jeane J. Kirkpatrick
War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.
~ Karl Kraus
But what a cruel thing is war; to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, adn to devastate the fari face of this beautiful world!
~ Robert E. Lee
It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit that we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It is morale that wins the victory.
~ George Marshall
Some say the American soldier is the same clean-cut young man who left his home; other say morale is sky-high at the front because everybody’s face is shining for the great Cause. They are wrong. The combat man isn’t the same clean-cut lad because you don’t fight a kraut by Marquis of Queensberry rules. You shoot him in the back, you blow him apart with mines, you kill or maim him the quickest and most effective way you can with the least danger to yourself. He does the same to you. He tricks you and cheats you, and if you don’t beat him at his own game you don’t live to appreciate your own nobleness.
~ Bill Mauldin, in Up Front. NY: Henry Holt & Co., 1945. pp. 13-14
The surest way to become a pacifist is to join the infantry.
~ Bill Mauldin, in Up Front. p. 14
War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.
~ H. L. Mencken
War loses a great deal of its romance after a soldier has seen his first battle. I have a more vivid recollection of the first that the last one I was in. It is a classical maxim that it is sweet and becoming to die for one’s country; but whoever has seen the horrors of a battlefield feels that it is far sweeter to live for it.
~ John S. Mosby, in War Reminiscences
War is the only game in which it doesn’t pay to have the home-court advantage.
~ Dick Motta
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
~ George Orwell
Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains that victory.
~ George S. Patton
When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty.
~ Arthur Ponsonby, in Falsehood in Wartime
War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.
~ Pindar
A great war leaves a country with three armies: an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.
~ German proverb
There are casualties in war who are neither killed nor wounded. A shell kills four men and intimidates a thousand.
~ Rene Quinton
To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.
~ George Santayana
A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
~ William Shakespeare, in Richard III
The purple testament of bleeding war.
~ William Shakespeare, in King Richard II
I begin to regard the death and mangling of a couple thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash–and it may be well that we become so hardened.
~ William Tecumseh Sherman
There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell. You can bear this warning voice to generations yet to come. I look upon war with horror.
~ William Tecumseh Sherman
Great empires are not maintained by timidity.
~ Tacitus, in Histories
The war made me poignantly aware of the beauty of the world.
~ J.R.R. Tolkien
We saw the lightning and that was the guns and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.
~ Harriet Tubman
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
~ Sun Tzu
It is a bad thing always to be fighting. While in the thick of it I am too much occupied to feel anything; but it is wretched just after. It is quite impossible to think of glory. Both mind and feelings are exhausted. I am wretched even at the moment of victory, and I always say that, next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is battle gained.
~ Duke of Wellington
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It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit that we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It is morale that wins the victory.
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This evening Robert Novak spoke during our dinner at the Defending the American Dream Summit. Yes, I know what some of you are thinking who routinely read my blog. It has not been long since I said of Novak that as he has aged (he is 76) he has gradually stopped doing research and reporting and instead has become a gossip columnist. (And, yes I made a similar claim about the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund who will be speaking to us tomorrow.) But, let me tell you, Novak’s speech this evening and the Q&A session afterwards were both insightful and interesting.
Over the weekend I had a long talk with my children about why we observe Memorial Day. We do not celebrate the death of anyone but remember and honor their sacrifice. Life is sacred, to lay it down for the benefit of others is worthy of remembrance and honor.
So, for what would you die? Family? Friends? Your country? Freedom? Truth?
Once we admit that there are causes for which it would be appropriate to die, we acknowledge that there are things more important than life, and that death is not the greatest evil — that suffering and death can have great meaning and purpose. The question is often asked why a good God would allow suffering, the implication being that God must either be not good or not powerful enough to prevent it. No, that does not follow. That reasoning is specious. Once we acknowledge that there are things to be valued more greatly than life and comfort we can not put an all-knowing God into the dock. He can allow the unpleasant, for reasons that are meaningful and good.
The death of Jesus of Nazareth exhibits this reasoning. The murder of the only righteous man was a great evil, and yet the event is full of meaning and purpose. Jesus is our propitiation – He is our mercy seat.
I encourage you to think upon Romans chapters 1, 2, and 3 as an appropriate follow-up to the observance of our national Memorial Day.
The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, whether by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable.
~ in Personal Memoirs, vol. 1
I never learned to swear. When a boy I seemed to have an aversion to it, and when I became a man I saw th folly of it. I have always noticed, too, that swearing helps to rouse a man’s anger; and when a man flies into a passion his adversary who keeps cool always gets the better of him. In fact, i could never see the use of swearing. I think it is the case with many people who swear excessively that they do not mean to be profane; but, to say the least, it is a great waste of time.
~ quoted in Cigars, Whiskey, and Winning Leadership Lessons, p. 9
One of the advantages of spending several hours on the highway every day is that I get a chance to listen to lots of recorded lectures and sermons. Today I listened to four of Pete Briscoe’s sermons preached back in May and June of 2007. They were part of his Turning a Kind Eye series and were on the topics of Darfur, The War In Iraq, Abortion, and the Environment.
All four were artfully woven together and Biblically tight. It made me think of a definition of “rhetoric” offered by Agricola. He referred to rhetoric as “the utility of truth.”
All four can be found in the Bent Tree sermon archives. Check them out and let me know what you think.
Historical perspective, political and current event analysis, personal memoir, and Biblical exegesis; — what’s not to like? I finished listening to the seven-disc audio book and immediately started over with disc one again. There was just too much good information to take it all in the first time around.
This week I was privileged to have a hero set through one of my classes. He was a soldier, the husband of one of my students, home for a short leave before returning to Iraq. Yes, I consider him a hero. I consider all of our soldiers heroes who put their lives on the line to protect freedom and democracy.
I am appalled by the behavior towards our soldiers of many of those who disagree with the war in which we now find ourselves engaged. It is possible to debate whether or not the war on terror which is being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan is a just war. Honorable people can disagree. However, honorable people should honor our troops regardless of their opinion of the war.
On the other hand, I am also impressed by the tremendous outpouring of support from every imaginable source; school children send letters of support, communities provide care for family members left here at home, books are collected and mailed, and prayers are offered up to God for their protection and well-being.
Many businesses with social consciences have also participated in supporting our troops. One such business is Larson Electronics located in Kemp, Texas which operates magnalight.com . They have been donating hid lights to units in Iraq which are charged with clearing IEDs at night.
On Sunday’s This Week television show, John McCain stated that Americans are not so concerned about how long we stay in Iraq as they are about the loss of life. I am grateful to Larson Electronics for doing what they can go help prevent the loss of American lives.
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Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong!
~ Stephen Decatur
And say not thou “My country right or wrong”
Nor shed thy blood for an unhallowed cause.
~ John Quincy Adams, in Congress, Slavery and an Unjust War
“My country right or wrong” is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.”
~ G.K. Chesterton, in The Defendant
I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.
~ E. M. Forster, in Two Cheers For Democracy
