battles Quotes

“The nation was literally fighting for its literal life— ‘they or we.’ Anything went, and what ‘anything’ was, what enormities it embraced, depended entirely on the turn of the battle.”

“I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass.The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.”

“They sawed in two and scooped out a great beam from end to end, and fitting it nicely together again like a pipe, hung by chains a cauldron at one extremity, with which communicated an iron tube projecting from the beam, which was itself in great part plated with iron. This they brought up from a distance upon carts to the part of the wall principally composed of vines and timber, and when it was near, inserted huge bellows into their end of the beam and blew with them. The blast passing closely confined into the cauldron, which was filled with lighted coals, sulphur and pitch, made a great blaze, and set fire to the wall, which soon became untenable for its defenders, who left it and fled; and in this way the fort was taken.”

“Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. For war consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather.”

“Deep in his heart, every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.”

“Truth be told, most of us are faking our way through life. We pick only those battles we are sure to win, only those adventures we are sure to handle, only those beauties we are sure to rescue.”

“There’s for thy labor, Montjoy. (Gives money) Go bid thy master well advise himself: If we may pass, we will; if we be hindered, We shall your tawny ground with your red blood Discolor. And so, Montjoy, fare you well. The sum of all our answer is but this: We would not seek a battle as we are, Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it. So tell your master.”

“Then imitate the action of the tiger. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage. Then lend the eye a terrible aspect”

“If we are marked to die, we are enough To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honour. God’s will, I pray thee wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold”

“So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him.”

″...for many a thousand widows Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands, Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down; And some are yet ungotten and unborn That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn.”

“That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart. His passport shall be made And crowns for convoy put into his purse. We would not die in that man’s company That fears his fellowship to die with us.”

“I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it, who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.”

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition”

“We must try not to sink beneath our anguish, Harry, but battle on.”

“Seasons is a wise metaphor for the movement of life, I think. It suggests that life is neither a battlefield nor a game of chance but something infinitely richer, more promising, more real.”

“The Apaches were once a great nation; they are now but few, and because of this they want to die and so carry their lives on their fingernails. Many have been killed in battle. You must speak straight so that your words may go as sunlight to our hearts.”

“You’ve gotta learn to defend yourself. You kids should have been given some training in self-defense . . . It’s never too late. It takes a warrior to fight a battle and survive. This here is a battle if I’ve ever seen one.”

″‘I wonder, now, what the Rules of Battle are,’ she said to herself, as she watched the fight, timidly peeping out from her hiding-place. ‘One Rule seems to be, that if one Knight hits the other, he knocks him off his horse; and, if he misses, he tumbles off himself – and another Rule seems to be that they hold their clubs with their arms, as if they were Punch and Judy – What a noise they make when they tumble! Just like a whole set of fire-irons falling into the fender! And how quiet the horses are! They let them get on and off them just as if they were tables!‘”

“Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.”

“It isn’t equipment that wins the battles; it is the quality and the determination of the people fighting for a cause in which they believe.”

“I am calm and peaceful. I will not let people or circumstances upset me. I will rise above every difficulty, knowing that God has given me the power to remain calm. I choose to live my life happy, bloom where I am planted, and let God fight my battles.”

“I know that my life will only ever be a battle against the darkness - a darkness that is infinite and eternal in its very nature - and it will remain that way until the inevitable day when the darkness takes my last breath.”

″[War] provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world.”

“Egypt, thou knew’st too well My heart was to thy rudder tied by th’strings And thou shouldst tow me after. ”

“Their birth protects them,” Cersei admitted, “though not as much as you’d think. Each one’s worth a good ransom, but after the madness of battle, soldiers often seem to want flesh more than coin.”

“All of us . . . are engaged in a war already, although not all of us know it.”

“The father’s job is to teach his children how to be warriors, to give them the confidence to get on the horse to ride into battle when it’s necessary to do so. If you don’t get that from your father, you have to teach yourself.”

“About a fair and gentle knight In battle, tournament and fight, Sir Topaz was his name.”

“Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old.”

“Winter will never come for the likes of us. Should we die in battle, they will surely sing of us, and it’s always summer in the songs.”

“He heard the soft ‘shu-u-u’ of the mortarshell for perhaps half a second. There was not even time to connect it with himself and frighten him, before there was a huge sunburst roaring of an explosion almost on top of him, then black blank darkness. He had a vague impression that someone screamed but did not know it was himself. ”

“But there was nothing dulce et decorum about the Dervish dead. Nothing of the dignity of unconquerable manhood. All was filthy corruption. Yet these were as brave men as ever walked the earth. ”

“Two hundred yards further the full force of the fire, artillery, Maxims and rifles, had burst on them. In places desperate rushes to get on at all costs, had been made by devoted, fearless men. In such places the bodies lay so thickly as to hide the ground. Occasionally there were double layers of this hideous covering.”

“Once I saw them lying three deep. In a space not exceeding a hundred yards square more than four hundred corpses lay festering. Can you imagine the postures in which man, once created in the image of his Maker, had been twisted? Do not try, for were you to succeed you would ask yourself, with me: ‘Can I ever forget.”

“The conviction was borne in on me that their claim beyond the grave in respect of a valiant death was not less good than that which any of our countrymen could make.”

“This, I realized now watching Dienekes rally and tend to his men, was the role of the officer: to prevent those under this command, at all stages of battle--before, during and after--from becoming “possessed.” To fire their valor when it flagged and rein in their fury when it threatened to take them out of hand. ”

“Habit will be your champion. When you train the mind to think one way and one way only, when you refuse to allow it to think in another, that will produce great strength in battle.”

“You are the commanders, your men will look to you and act as you do. Let no officer keep to himself or his brother officers, but circulate daylong among his men. Let them see you and see you unafraid.”

“Where there is work to do, turn your hand to it first; the men will follow. Some of you, I see, have erected tents. Strike them at once. We will all sleep as I do, in the open. Keep your men busy. ”

“If there is no work, make it up, for when soldiers have time to talk, their talk turns to fear. Action, on the other hand, produces the appetite for more action.”

“Filmmakers understandably love footage of gore and battle, but any naturalist will tell you that the species are not in any sense at war with one another.”

“Good soldiers know that if they don’t recognize who their enemy is, they are destined to lose the war. That is also true for those of us who battle in God’s army.”

“Even though Jesus put the enemy under His feet and won the victory for us, we still must move into that victory. There are still battles to be fought in prayer.”

“Even though Jesus put the enemy under His feet and won the victory for us, we still must move into that victory. There are still battles to be fought in prayer.”

“Know that we win the war when we pray in power because prayer is the battle.”

“There are many things God wants to do on earth and in people’s lives, but if someone doesn’t leap in and answer the call to pray, it won’t happen.”

“Our battle is spiritual, and what we accomplish in the spirit realm is as important as what the highly trained, prepared, and equipped soldier does in the physical. We must know our weapons and be highly skilled in using them. But first we must put on the armor God has given us in order to stand strong against”

“Faith dissolves fear and makes us courageous.”

“You need this armor to stop any onslaught of the enemy’s destructive arrows into your life and the lives of those you care about—both now and in the future.”

“My Boys in the Back Room have already begun to think up a walloping whizz-zinger one! My Bright Boys are thinking. They’re on the right track. They’ll think one up quick and we’ll send you right back!”

“Fight! Fight for the Butter Side up! Do or Die!”

“I’m unhappy to say he came back the next day in a spiffy new suit with a big new machine, and he snarled as he said, looking frightfully mean.”

“We didn’t do. And we didn’t quiet die. But we sure did get worsted, poor Daniel and I.”

“We’ve just voted and made you a general! You’ve been promoted. Your pretty new uniform’s ready. Get in it! The Big War is coming. You’re going to begin it! And what’s more, this time you are certain to win it!”

“Then one terrible day a very rude Zook by the name of VanItch snuck up and slingshotted my Snick-Berry Switch!”

″ ‘If you sprinkle us Zooks, you’ll get sprinkled as well!’ VanItch had a Sputter exactly like mine!”

“There had just been a big battles between the dolls and mice. The reason I was so scared was that the mice were going to capture poor Nutcracker, who was in command of the dolls. So I threw my shoe at the mice, and after that I don’t know what happened.”

“Crack crack crack, ugly stupid mice, we’ll beat them blue and black, we’ll squash them all like lice, crack crack crack.”

″ ‘Here’s the end of that terrible town full of Zooks who eat bread with the butter side down!’ And at that very instant we heard a klupp-klupp of feet on the Wall and old VanItch klupped up!”

“It’ll be a fierce battle today, and we must be ready for the wounded, poor creatures.”

“O Krakatuk, hard nut from which I die Hee hee, pee pee You too, Nutcracker, will perish by and by. My son with sevenfold crown Will bring Nutcracker down. Yea, never fear He will avenge his mother dear. O Life, blood red and milky white, I leave thee for the shades of night. Squeak!”

“That’s when Grandfather found me! He grabbed me. He said, ′ you should be down that hole! And you’re up here instead! But perhaps this is all for the better, somehow. You will see me make history! RIGHT HERE! AND RIGHT NOW!′ ”

″‘A fine woman. A cultured woman,’ they said, but were glad it was their children and not they who had to spend each day in the classroom. The Ferretti voice rang out across the empty town, like a tocsin bell announcing the outbreak of battle: Senhora Ferretti’s battle against Ignorance.”

“In the heat of battle he remains cool; in the midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind.”

“12--Lose Battles, But Win The War: Grand Strategy Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead. Focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.”

“Understand: your mind is weaker than your emotions. But you become aware of this weakness only in moments of adversity--precisely the time when you need strength. What best equips you to cope with the heat of battle is neither more knowledge nor more intellect. What makes your mind stronger, and more able to control your emotions, is internal discipline and toughness.No one can teach you this skill; you cannot learn it by reading about it. Like any discipline, it can come only through practice, experience, even a little suffering. The first step in building up presence of mind is to see the need for ii -- to want it badly enough to be willing to work for it.”

“But the greatest battle of all is with yourself—your weaknesses, your emotions, your lack of resolution in seeing things through to the end. You must declare unceasing war on yourself.”

“Most people consider life a battle, but it is not a battle, it is a game.”

“Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible.

“If they both lived through the battle!”

“Jeffy, I hope I never have to hear another gun go off, as long as I live.”

“I was just eight then, everything seemed to me a game, the battle of us children against the adults was the battle that all children fight. I didn’t understand that my brother’s determination concealed something deeper.”

“Their lives were utterly uncomplicated because they were devoted to one purpose, dedicated in their entirety to the waging of one battle: the battle with death.”

They flee together into Tibet, and reach a major Tibetan temple. With his strict Calvinistic upbringing Theodore is at first repelled and horrified by lamaistic Buddhism, but eventually comes to terms with it.

Karl must summon all of his courage to help his brother prepare for the battle that lies ahead . . .

“To the tank, Bagheera. Roll to the water tanks. Roll and plunge! Get to the water!”