“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
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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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(A note for my SWBTS students:) You have been asking what textbooks I will be using next semester. Hopefully, this advance notice will allow you to shop for the best prices. You will find below a list of the textbooks for the three sections I am teaching.
CHURCH AND EMPIRES (sections 1203a and 1203b)
- A Short History of Byzantium
, by John Julius Norwich – isbn. 0679772693
- The Middle Ages
, by Morris Bishop – isbn 061805703X
- Medieval Philosophy (A New History of Western Philosophy, Vol. 2)
, by Anthony Kenny – isbn. 0198752741
EARLY WESTERN CIVILIZATION (section 1103A)
- The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome
, by Susan Wise Bauer – isbn 039305974X
- Israel and the Nations: The History of Israel from the Exodus to the Fall of the Second Temple
, by F.F. Bruce – isbn 0830815104
I am making some adjustments to the syllabus, but it should be available via Blackboard sometime during the next few weeks. If you want to do so pre-reading, I suggest starting with what interests you as you are more likely to stick with it that way. However, the texts will be tackled pretty much in the order you find them listed above. Enjoy!
Accordingly, whatever in secular histories runs counter to it [Scripture] we do not hesitate to brand as wholly false, while with respect to nonparallel matters we remain indifferent.
~ in The City of God, trans. Gerald G. Walsh, Demetrius B. Zema, Grace Monahan and Daniel Honan (NY: Image, 1958), page. 408.
He that is good is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though, he be a king.
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that thou mayest believe, but believe that thou mayest understand.
Total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
When facts are reported, they deny the value of evidence; when the evidence is produced, they declare it inconclusive.
~ in The City of God
Thou has made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.
~ in Confessions
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The gods have sent medicines for the venom of serpents, but there is no medicine for a bad woman. She is more noxious than the viper, or any fire itself.
~ in Andromache
Man’s greatest tyrants are his wife and children.
~ in Oedipus
Man’s best possession is a sympathetic wife.
~ in Fragments, no. 164
No man is wholly free. He is slave to wealth, or to fortune, or the laws, or the people restrain him from acting according to his will alone.
~ in Hecuba
Plain and unvarnished are the words of truth.
~ in The Phoenissae
The facts speak for themselves.
~ in Fragments
There are three classes of citizens. The first are the rich, who are indolent and yet always crave more. The second are the poor, who have nothing, are full of envy, hate the rich, and are easily led by demagogues. Between the two extremes lie those who make the state secure and uphold the laws.
~ in The Suppliants
Along with success comes a reputation for wisdom.
Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.
Better a serpent than a stepmother!
But learn that to die is a debt we must all pay.
Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent.
Cleverness is not wisdom.
Danger gleams like sunshine to a brave man’s eyes.
Do not plan for ventures before finishing what’s at hand.
Events will take their course, it is no good being angry at them; he is happiest who wisely turns them to the best account.
Fortune truly helps those who are of good judgment.
Happiness is brief. It will not stay. God batters at its sails.
He is not a lover who does not love forever.
He was a wise man who originated the idea of God.
Human misery must somewhere have a stop; there is no wind that always blows a storm.
I would prefer as friend a good man ignorant than one more clever who is evil too.
Impudence is the worst of all human diseases.
It’s not beauty but fine qualities, my girl, that keep a husband.
Leave no stone unturned.
Life has no blessing like a prudent friend.
New faces have more authority than accustomed ones.
Nothing has more strength than dire necessity.
One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.
Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.
Silence is true wisdom’s best reply.
Slight not what’s near through aiming at what’s far.
Some wisdom you must learn from one who’s wise.
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
The best of seers is he who guesses well.
The good and the wise lead quiet lives.
The lucky person passes for a genius.
The wisest men follow their own direction.
This is slavery, not to speak one’s thought.
Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes angry.
To a father growing old, nothing is dearer than a daughter.
‘Twas but my tongue, ’twas not my soul that swore.
Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.
Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.
Youth is the best time to be rich, and the best time to be poor.
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When I was doing corporate training it was common for us to keep a bag of candy close by to throw at trainees from time to time.
“Good answer. Have a Hershey’s Kiss.” Toss, catch, unwrap, eat. It broke any monotony and kept trainees on their toes.
I have been thinking about how I can implement a similar training/educational scenario for the students in the college classes I teach. My classes are rather large with 60-75 students so I think I am going to have to modify my approach. Rather than a sack of candy, I think I am going to invest in a paintball gun.
“Smith, John Q., what did Aristotle have to say about Plato’s metaphysical dualism?”
The room grows silent as student Smith, John Q. considers his response. His pause extends a little too long. It is apparent that he has not read pages 66-87 of A.H. Armstrong’s An Introduction To Ancient Philosophy. So, I deftly reach into my briefcase, pull my new 08 Spyder MR2 to my shoulder, and squeeze the trigger.
Thwap! Thwap! Thwap! Three paintballs slap into the chest of student Smith, John Q. The monotony is broken, and there is plenty of incentive for students to do their assigned reading prior to the next class session.
Pedagogy at its best!
I will be using the same books in both of the Ancient Western Civilization classes that I am teaching this Fall. I tried to find books that were comprehensive, informative, and interesting. I hope that those of you who are taking my classes agree. I have shared the texts below in the event that you want to do some reading before class starts (as well as some comparative pricing).
Remember, the Lifeway college bookstore gives a 20% student discount on most books. Here are some online prices;
Lillian Ladele said her religious beliefs prevented her from conducting same-sex marriages. For that, she has been ridiculed and demoted. Richard Littlejohn has written a thought provoking article on it over at Mail Online. He, an agnostic who is an advocate of same-sex marriage, writes,
But that’s the problem with the diversity nazis.
Diversity doesn’t do dissent. While it embraces the fundamental right of people of just about every creed and colour to behave exactly as they please regardless of the law of the land, it doesn’t run to devout Christians.
Had Miss Ladele been a Muslim objecting to same-sex weddings on religious grounds, does anyone seriously believe she would have been hounded, ridiculed, persecuted and demoted by the Guardianistas who run Islington Council?
She’s not the only victim of this intolerant legislation, either.
Why is is it that diversity and toleration rarely extends to those who hold orthodox Christian beliefs?
It takes two steps to get to the answer.
1) Tolerance has been redefined such that it no longer means allowing others to hold viewpoints with which you disagree. Tolerance is now the codeword for relativity of truth, in which all ideas are supposed to be equally valid – equally right.
2) Why were Christians persecuted in Rome. It wasn’t because they worshiped Jesus, but because they worshiped him alone. Early Christians believed in eternal truths and thus had a standard by which they could judge the beliefs and actions of others. The Romans thought if they could get rid of the Christians they could get rid of criticism of their own way of life.
That is what is taking place today. Western Civilization has backtracked to the old Roman empire and the persecutions that took place in the first three centuries after Christ.
Current events demonstrate an attitude that says “Get rid of the Christians and there will be no standards by which to judge our beliefs and actions.”
