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Battles Quotes

Browse 179 quotes about Battles.

Battles Quotes

“Dead and mutilated bodies, famine, and citizens handicapped by economic sanctions are all part of the warlords’ bartering chips for seizing power and securing valuable concessions. Many proud nations of indigenous people perished in battle for control of lands that rightfully did not belong to the army bearing superior forces. No army returns territory it took, unless compelled to do so by hard costs. The meek might inherit the earth someday, but for now the most aggressive and ruthless armies control the turf.”

“As in walking, so in living with our fellows, some friction is necessary. To deprive a child of friction with other children is to keep him in slippery places. Unless we wish to teach him how to elude his kind, we shall not begrudge him his wholesome contests of skill, of wit, of strength, of temper. We shall only take [Pg 113] care that he does his fighting fairly and not on too slight a provocation, that he knows how to yield to the weakness of another, that he does not learn to whine or snivel, that he does not become a tale-bearer, that he can take defeat or rebuke without callousness and without a whimper, that he becomes capable of forgetting his resentments and his personal triumphs over others, and that of all his victories, he learns to value most those which he wins over himself.”

“This was where war happened, in someone’s backyard. Sometimes it was yours. Often, it was someone’s a world away. But it did happen. In this moment. In the next breath. Every day. Every day, someone lived in the midst of destruction and chaos. Every day, someone’s flower boxes filled with gunpowder’s haze, a child’s laughter turned to tears. There had been a day when someone watered those flowers in the evening’s peaceful quiet and the children caught fireflies in mason jars. And that day will come again, when the crickets and the bullets no longer have to compete for the night’s stage. But for now, all anyone could do was fight on the crickets’ behalf.”

“It is not the best for us to lay embago on the industries that produce temptations. What we need to do is to compete, overcome and dominate the market with the products of our endurance. No battles we face, no crown will we win. No temptations exist, no conquerors are known.”

“The enemy is stupid, he replied. That is ground for hope. There is no originality in tyrants, and they learn nothing from the demise of their precursors. They will be brutal and stifling and engender hatred and destroy what men love and that will defeat them. All important battles are, in the end, conflicts between hatred and love, and we must hold to the idea that love is stronger than hate.”

“This is the field where the battle did not happen, where the unknown soldier did not die. This is the field where grass joined hands, where no monument stands, and the only heroic thing is the sky. Birds fly here without any sound, unfolding their wings across the open. No people killed—or were killed—on this ground hallowed by neglect and an air so tame that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.”

“Favorite Quotations. I speak my mind because it hurts to bite my tongue. The worth of a book is measured by what you carry away from it. It's not over till it's over. Imagination is everything. All life is an experiment. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly.”