Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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“A soldier’s duty is to protect the nation, its people and its interests.”
Gaolathe Galebotswe wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Being a writer/poet the work requires of you to defy and unlearn the thing that has taught you silence and the unspoken contract that the neighbors and extended family cannot know and get involved with traumas that are happening in your house and in your life, and that you are supposed to deal with it quietly and soldier on because you are a “strong black woman.”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I want you to bear witness that I die as a Soldier of the Irish Republic.”
Terence MacSwiney (1879–1920) said by 1920 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: His last words, to a visiting priest. Quoted in Richard Bennett, The Black and Tans (2010) p. 90
“We shall never conquer this greatest of national perils simply by spreading pious fluff over the landscape. Cannot we simply take our courage in our own hands now and face the facts of life as they really are?, because we'd know no one wanted to publicise the problem of soldier VD.”
Ettie Rout (1877–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As stated in: Tolerton, Jane (2015) "Ettie Rout New Zealand's safer sex pioneer". Penguin Random House New Zealand. pp. 20. ISBN 978-0-14-357324-1
“When you plant good seeds and maintain that attitude, when harvest time comes, people will actually respect your decision because you have been a good soldier to them.”
Judy Ann Santos (born 1978) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Deception is often helpful in warfare. An enemy soldier who deserts to us, apart from some plot, is of the greatest advantage, for the enemy is hurt by deserters more than if the same men were killed in action.”
Maurice (emperor) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He thanked God in his heart that he had plucked her blemishless from gradual death. It was even thus, he thought, that a good soldier should ride into Paradise bearing the soul of the woman he loved.”
Warwick Deeping (1877–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because he was hungry for holiness – because he was holy – his modest faults as a soldier loomed in his conscience like crimes; and this happens to saints. (p. 50)”
Igino Giordani (1894–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The valor of a soldier is not judged in times of peace or quiet, but in the hour of the assault. (p. 72)ù”
Francesco Olgiati (1886–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If any reward is due to a soldier, never was one so honoured and distinguished as I have been by the possession of this dear child (for she was little more than a child at this moment), one with a sense of honour no knight ever exceeded in the most romantic days of chivalry.”
Sir Harry Smith, 1st Baronet (1787–1860) said by 1860 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They know me, I be old soldier, I no dey fear anything for this life. I am not afraid of anything except God. If you want to score me, go and check the national budget, check the items that fall under Lavun/Mokwa/Edati Federal Constituency and the allocation. Go and check if the projects were 100 per cent funded, then you can come and ask me about it and that is when you can score me.”
Joshua Audu-Gana wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have made many sacrifices, I have always considered myself like a soldier serving for my homeland, I have offered to my country Olympic and World medals, I have smashed records.”
Hicham El Guerrouj (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You call these baubles, well, it is with baubles that men are led... Do you think that you would be able to make men fight by reasoning? Never. That is only good for the scholar in his study. The soldier needs glory, distinctions, and rewards.”
Napoleon (attributed) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On awards, as quoted in Mémoires sur le Consulat. 1799 à 1804 (1827) by Antoine-Claire, Comte Thibaudeau. Chez Ponthieu, pp. 83–84. Original: "On appelle cela des hochets; eh bien! c'est avec des hochets que l'on mène l…
“Every soldier carries a Marshal's baton in his knapsack”
Napoleon (misattributed) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Actually uttered by Louis XVIII. See Every soldier carries a Marshal's baton in his knapsack by Dushenko K.V., Bulletin of Cultural Studies (Вестник культурологии, ISSN 2658-3291). DOI: 10.31249/hoc/2019.02.11
“Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.”
Alexander Haig (misattributed) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No contemporaneous or primary source for this statement has been found. Its earliest located publication is the advocacy column "The US–Israel Saga" by Yoram Ettinger (11 May 2005); Michael Oren repeated it in Foreign P…
“India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.”
Hu Shih (attributed) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hu Shih, The Indianization of China. Proceedings of Harvard Tercentenary Conference of Arts and Sciences and Independence, Convergence, and Borrowing in Institutions, Thought and Art. Harvard University Press, 1936.
“We regret to learn from Gettysburg Hospital that Charles Webber, of the Fourteenth Regiment, who lost the fingers from his right hand, died from erysipelas in the wound on Sunday night. He was a good soldier, and admired by his comrades for his bravery.”
Charles Frederick Webber (1825–1863) said by 1863 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That in the captain 's but a choleric word Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth Was parmaceti for an inward bruise; And that it was great pity, so it was, This villanous saltpetre should be digg'd Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd So cowardly; and but for these vile guns, He would himself have been a soldier.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two And sleeps again.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“I said, an elder soldier, not a better: Did I say "better"?”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard?”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“You may relish him more in the soldier than in the scholar.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“The sex is ever to a soldier kind.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) said by 1744 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“The first who was king was a fortunate soldier: Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.”
Francis M. Voltaire (1694–1778) said by 1778 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“The media, itself an arm of mega-corporate power, feeds the fear industry, so that people are primed like pumps to support wars on rumor, innuendo, legends, and lies.”
Mumia Abu-Jamal (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wars begin through greed and vanity and are continued through the insanity of nationalism in which the boundaries of a land replace God.”
Billy Collins (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“During the period between the two world wars, US gunboat diplomacy operated in the Caribbean to make "The American Lake" safe for the fortunes...”
William Blum (1933–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fold him in his country's stars, Roll the drum and fire the volley! What to him are all our wars, What but death bemocking folly?”
George Henry Boker (1823–1890) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dirge for a Soldier (in Memory of General Philip Kearny)", stanza 3, in Poems of the War (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864), p. 169.
“All wars will be settled by sea power.”
Erich Raeder (1876–1960) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In Forrest Davis, "The Atlantic System: The Story of Anglo-American Control of the Seas" (1941), p. 221.
“The tragedy of civil wars in countries like Angola and Mozambique is that they left many civilians maimed. Poverty is the reason HIV/AIDS spread so rapidly in the African townships and slums. Poverty is the real killer.”
Miriam Makeba (1932–2008) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Nkrumah, Gamal (1–7 November 2001)
“What's the dominant emotion associated with purity? Anger. The most aggressive people are the ones who insist on being utterly pure. It's responsible for countless wars at all levels of society. Far better to have no aspiration, no hope and relate to things just as they are.”
Ken McLeod (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was the calm and silent night! Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might, And now was queen of land and sea. No sound was heard of clashing wars, Peace brooded o’er the hushed domain; Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars Held undisturbed their ancient reign In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago.”
Alfred Domett (1811–1887) first seen 1833 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Christmas Hymn (1833), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Who would have believed it probable or possible, before these discoveries were made, that beneath the heap of earth and rubbish which marked the site of Nineveh, there would be found the history of the wars between Hezekiah and Sennacherib, written at the very time when they took place by Sennacherib himself, and confirming even in minute details the Biblical record?”
Austen Henry Layard (1817–1894) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nineveh and Babylon by Sir Austen Henry Layard, (1882) pp. 51-2
“If it is necessary we will find a quick answer and it will not be the way the United States expects it. It will be an answer that devalues the 'Star Wars' program.”
Sergei Akhromeyev (1923–1991) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1986 UPI (Moscow) press release on Soviet reaction to the Strategic Defense Initiative. Quoted in Ellensburg Daily Record, 27 Aug 1986, and elsewhere.
“In Eden the trouble began. And even after that, Cain slew Abel. In every Paradise, there have been wars. But in the Polar cold, in the Sahara, in all inhospitable lands where men wrench a dangerous living from the hostile elements, there is comradeship in unity against the Enemy older than man, the universe in which he dwells.”
Henry Kuttner (1915–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The wars ended when there were no longer two societies left to fight against each other.”
Henry Kuttner (1915–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“George Lucas should have distributed the "source code" to Star Wars. Millions of fans would create their own movies and stories. Most of them would be terrible, but a few would be genius.”
Gabe Newell (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The pragmatic justification is that liberalism is... a political doctrine that seeks to enable societies to govern themselves over diversity. It arose in the minds of thinkers like Thomas Hobbes or John Locke or Samuel Pufendorf... as a result of the European wars of religion following the Protestant Reformation.”
Francis Fukuyama (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”
George McGovern (1922–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Governments everywhere are lying to people to make them hate others that they wouldn't have any quarrel with otherwise. You'd think they'd have learned something after two world wars, but where else can it lead than right where it's all going? Theo's right — the lunatics end up in charge of everything. Sane, normal people don't need power trips.”
James P. Hogan (1941–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wars have no memory, and nobody has the courage to understand them until there are no voices left to tell what happened, until the moment comes when we no longer recognize them and they return, with another face and another name, to devour what they left behind.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón (1964–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rugged! Rugged as Parnassus! Rude, as all roads I have trod — Yet are steeps and stone-strown passes Smooth o'er head, and nearest God.Here black thunders of my canyon Shake its walls in Titan wars! Here white sea-born clouds companion With such peaks as know the stars!”
Joaquin Miller (1837–1913) said by 1913 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wars don’t determine who’s right, only who’s left.”
Gregory Benford (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As Kurt Vonnegut pointed out in his first novel, Player Piano, some people love problem-solving and tinkering—and that is the final, irreducible driver of human history. Wars and faiths and leaders come and go, but the problem-solvers’ slow, steady work is the fulcrum upon which history turns.”
Gregory Benford (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That smile could end wars and cure cancer.”
John Green (born 1977) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Balkan wars led to a further inconsistency in U.S. policy. … America asked Europe to carry more of the defense burden, and then grew resentful when the EU did as asked.”
Charles A. Kupchan (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I sing the cycle of my country's year, I sing the tillage, and the reaping sing, Classic monotony, that modes and wars Leave undisturbed, unbettered, for their best Was born immediate, of expediency.”
Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When established identities become outworn or unfinished ones threaten to remain incomplete, special crises compel men to wage holy wars, by the cruelest means, against those who seem to question or threaten their unsafe ideological bases.”
Erik Erikson (1902–1994) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Problem of Ego Identity" (1956), published in Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 4:56-121