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Cavalry Quotes

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Cavalry Quotes

“Wars, wars, wars': reading up on the region I came across one moment when quintessential Englishness had in fact intersected with this darkling plain. In 1906 Winston Churchill, then the minister responsible for British colonies, had been honored by an invitation from Kaiser Wilhelm II to attend the annual maneuvers of the Imperial German Army, held at Breslau. The Kaiser was 'resplendent in the uniform of the White Silesian Cuirassiers' and his massed and regimented infantry... reminded one more of great Atlantic rollers than human formations. Clouds of cavalry, avalanches of field-guns and—at that time a novelty—squadrons of motor-cars (private and military) completed the array. For five hours the immense defilade continued. Yet this was only a twentieth of the armed strength of the regular German Army before mobilization. Strange to find Winston Churchill and Sylvia Plath both choosing the word 'roller,' in both its juggernaut and wavelike declensions, for that scene.”

WarPoetryGermanyBritish EmpireCarsInfantryCavalryChurchillSylvia PlathKaiserEnglishness1906Kaiser Wilhelm IiGerman ArmyGerman EmpireUpper SilesiaWroclawBritish Overseas TerritoriesSilesia
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“It was the mist which made everything strange, spread across the land, a seven-foot-thick blanket, stretched almost uniformly over the flat bottom of the valley, and the gentle slopes leading down into it. As silent as the mist, Codrin’s army moved out of the forest. An observer high above the ground would see rows of floating heads, arranged in a matrix, the distance between them almost regular. Having helmets of many different colors, the heads offered a striking contrast to the white-gray monotony of the mist. An army of floating heads. Unaware of their weird appearance from above, the heads continued their journey down, toward Lenard’s army. To an observer on the ground, nothing could be seen until it was too late. Lenard’s sleeping soldiers woke up when the ground trembled to the rhythm of more than a thousand horses trampling everything in their way. They woke up, and they died. Some of them died while they slept. When the last cry died away, and the fog finally lifted, the surviving men surrendered. At the end of the clash, which became known as the Battle of the Mist, Codrin found that he had lost only fifteen men. Lenard had lost half of his army, his son and his life.”

WarDeathBattleStrategyCavalryCavalry Charge
Book:Respectant
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“Fire on the cavalry!” cried an officer from behind them. Javert raised his musket and glared with one open eye at the approaching horde. His eyes trained on a man in white astride a large bay mount. The Mameluk cavalry had their curved swords wielded, and they shone in the sun like blinding jewels. Javert tried to decide whether he should hit the horse or the rider. Without hesitating, he made his decision and pulled the trigger. The Mameluk cavalry rider’s arms flung upward as he was struck, and his body hurtled backward as though shoved by an invisible hand. The bay horse galloped onward in terror, leaving its master behind on the sand. The man’s white robes went scarlet around his belly, and he did not move again. Javert hurried to reload his musket, glancing over to see that Masse was sitting and staring over the battlefield in silence.”

EgyptCavalryLes MiserablesNapoleonic WarsJavertBattle Of HeliopolisCavalry ChargeMameluk
Book:Wolves and Urchins: The Early Life of Inspector Javert
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“Everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink - for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder.”

WritingIdeasEndsCharacterFormOrderFightingBlackWaterImaginationMemoriesFireBattleShapesPaperLaborLogicSightArmyMetaphorSpreadRageMarchFlagsMagnificentInkLegendaryPowderWagonsArtilleryCavalry
Author:Honore de Balzac
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“I have a great-great-great-grandfather who was a Confederate cavalry colonel, and I still have his military composite photo on my wall. The chemicals in the photo tint have changed over the years to the point that he looks green. One of my family members apparently still has the piece of paper that listed every thing in his pocket when he got shot.”

YearsLooksStillsPiecesMilitaryChangedWallMembersPaperShotsMy FamilyGreenPocketsChemicalsGrandfatherFamily MembersColonelsConfederateCompositesGreat GrandfatherCavalry
Author:Anson Mount
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“To fight aloud, is very brave— But gallanter, I know Who charge within the bosom The Cavalry of Wo— Who win, and nations do not see— Who fall — and none observe — Whose dying eyes, no Country Regards with patriot love— We trust, in plumed procession For such, the Angels go— Rank after Rank, with even feet— And Uniforms of Snow.”

KnowsCountryEyeFallFightingWinningNationsFeetDyingAngelRegardBraveSnowUniformsPatriotBosomsMiscellaneousProcessionCavalry
Book:Dickinson
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“If we paint the phases of a riot, the crowd bustling with uplifted fists and the noisy onslaughts of cavalry are translated upon the canvas in sheaves of lines corresponding with all the conflicting forces, following the general laws of violence of the picture... These force-lines must encircle and involve the spectator so that he will in a manner be forced to struggle himself with the persons in the picture.”

IfsPersonsLawForceLinesStruggleViolencePaintCrowdsFollowingPhasesCanvasFistsSpectatorsRiotNoisyCorrespondingCavalry
Author:Umberto Boccioni
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“I saw a cavalry captain buy vegetable soup on horseback. He carried the whole mess home in his helmet.”

WholeHomeSawsFoodCookingMessCulinaryVegetablesCaptainsSoupHelmetHorsebackCavalry
Book:Four Comedies: Lysistrata; The Acharnians; The Congresswomen, Translated by Douglass Parker. The Frogs, Translated by Richmond Lattimore
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“The active cavalry of Scythia is always followed, in their most distant and rapid incursions, by an adequate number of spare horses, who may be occasionally used, either to redouble the speed, or to satisfy the hunger, of the barbarians. Many are the resources of courage and poverty.”

MayUsedNumbersPovertyHistoryResourcesHorseHungerActiveSpeedSparesAdequateRapidsBarbariansRoman EmpireCavalry
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“Signal smokes, war drums, feathered bonnets against the western sky. New messiahs, young leaders are ready to hurl the finest light cavalry in the world against Fort Stark. In the Kiowa village, the beat of drums echoes in the pulsebeat of the young braves. Fighters under a common banner, old quarrels forgotten, Comanche rides with Arapaho, Apache with Cheyenne. All chant of war. War to drive the white man forever from the red man's hunting ground.”

MenWorldWarLightYoungWhiteCommonLeaderForeverSkyReadyBeatsRedBraveWesternForgottenFighterSmokeNativeVillageHuntingNative AmericanEchoesFinestWhite ManSignalsQuarrelsMessiahStarksBannerFortsCavalryBonnetsCheyenneYoung LeadersWestern Sky
Author:Frank Nugent
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“What a pity it is that our Congress had not known this discovery, and that Alexander Hamilton’s projects of raising an army of fifty thousand Men, ten thousand of them to be Cavalry and his projects of sedition Laws and Alien Laws and of new taxes to support his army, all arose from a superabundance of secretions which he could not find whores enough to draw off! and that the same vapours produced his Lyes and Slanders by which he totally destroyed his party forever and finally lost his Life in the field of Honor.”

MenEnoughLawLostPartyKnownSupportForeverFieldsHonorThousandTenTaxesProjectsDrawsDiscoveryArmyCongressPityDestroyedAliensFiftySlanderHamiltonCavalryVapour
Book:Old Family Letters: Copied from the Originals for Alexander Biddle... Series A-[B]
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“It hit me that an Apache resistance would be a wonderful, you know, it would be a wonderful metaphor for Jewish-American soldiers to be using behind enemy lines against the Nazis because the Apache Indians... were able to fight off for decades both the Spaniards and the Mexicans and the U.S. Cavalry for years because of their - they were great guerrilla fighters. They were great resistance fighters. And one of their ways of winning battles was psychological battles.”

KnowsWayYearsWould BeAbleFightingWinningLinesBehindsEnemyWonderfulBattleSoldierMetaphorDecadesResistancePsychologicalFighterNaziAmerican SoldierGuerrillasSpaniardsCavalry
Author:Quentin Tarantino
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“It was as if they had leapt over the arduous cavalry of conjugal life and gone straight to the heart of love. They were together in silence like an old married couple wary of life, beyond the pitfalls of passion, beyond the brutal mockery of hope and the phantoms of disillusion: beyond love. For they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid the closer it came to death.”

IfsKnowsHeartLongEnoughTogetherPassionSilenceGoneCoupleMarriedBrutalMockeryPhantomsPitfallsMarried CouplesCholeraDisillusionCavalryConjugalBeyond Love
Author:Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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“She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father's voice and her sister Margaret's. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air. (last lines)”

LastsFatherVoiceLinesHeardAirTreeDogFilledDistanceTerrorInstantOfficersBeesSpursPorchOdorChainedOld DogCavalry
Book:The Awakening & Other Short Stories
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“Comic books, movies, radio programmes centered their entertainment around the fact of torture. With the clearest of consciences, with a patriotic intensity, children dreamed, talked, acted orgies of physical abuse. Imaginations were released to wander on a reconnaissance mission from Cavalry to Dachau. European children starved and watched their parents scheme and die. Here we grew up with toy whips. Early warning against our future leaders, the war babies.”

ChildrenBookWarFactsDiesParentImaginationLeaderBabyGrewGrew UpConscienceAbuseRadioEntertainmentMissionsWanderComicTorturePatrioticOur FutureIntensityWarningToysSchemesComic BookWhipsProgrammesPhysical AbuseFuture LeadersCavalryDachau
Author:Leonard Cohen
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“This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army of the battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensuing to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent deploying charge, the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition, the shafts of with start up like sharpshooters. Similes arise, the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder.”

IdeasLightMovingFallBlackWaterStruggleWindBattlePaperLogicArmyTrainCoffeeAriseRememberedComparisonCoveredStomachMagnificentInkSimileBattlefieldsPowderCaffeineAmmunitionArtilleryCavalryDeploying
Author:Honore de Balzac
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“The first time we did cavalry charge I was so breathless with excitement I nearly fell off the horse. I actually saw stars in front of my eyes and thought I was going to faint. The second time I had a bit more control but was still giddy with excitement. And the third time I was an emotional wreck. I had to really try hard not to cry.”

TryingFirstsStillsHardEyeFilmStarsBitsSawsFrontsCryEmotionalFirst TimeThirdsHorseExcitementWrecksBreathlessGiddyThird TimeCavalryEmotional Wreck
Author:Benedict Cumberbatch
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“And what do the Theban hoplites see in this extended rending of the sky, this white-bright glory of Enlil's lightning? The future, but not theirs: paired cavalry fighters; formed ranks of armored death; grim men on their tall horses with lightning limning weapons tailored to the task; men spoiling for a fight if the gods allowed - the Sacred Band of Stepsons, out from shadows and the dark.”

IfsMenDeathFightingDarkWhiteSkyBattleBandConflictWeaponsGloryShadowCommitmentTasksHorseSacredFighterTallLightningGrimTailoredCavalryStepsons
Book:The Sacred Band
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