War Quotes - Page 260

The power of art is as powerful as weapons of mass destruction; it's just where war destroys, art inspires. But in order to inspire, you need to react to it. And, if it doesn't penetrate your mind, you can't react to it.

I must say that when I first learned of the existence of the Australian Greenhouse Office, I assumed it was responsible for supplying tomatoes to the Parliament House kitchen. But, no, as I soon learnt as industry minister, it was in fact a government funded redoubt of veritable soldiers in a war against carbon dioxide. The zealotry and obsessive passion of these warriors in the battle against the apparent evils of carbon dioxide remains a curiosity to me. After fighting these people for three years as industry minister, I really did wish they would just go away and grow tomatoes.

A prince must not have any objective nor any thought, nor take up any art, other than the art of war and its ordering and discipline; because it is the only art that pertains to him who commands. And it is of such virtue that not only does it maintain those who were born princes, but many times makes men rise to that rank from private station.

Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one; but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them.

Good order and discipline in any army are to be depended upon more than courage alone.

A prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and confident; for, with a very few examples, he will be more merciful than those who, from excess of tenderness, allow disorders to arise, from whence spring murders and rapine; for these as a rule injure the whole community, while the executions carried out by the prince injure only one individual. And of all princes, it is impossible for a new prince to escape the name of cruel, new states being always full of dangers.

It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock; and he should endeavour to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude; and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him.

You can take this as a gentle word of warning, if you like. We are just at the beginning of a period of more intensive antitrust enforcement.

There needs to be structures in place to do something about misrepresentation about hip hop. When awards are given out and the media talk about hip hop, they're confused because they haven't done their homework on it so you have a case where there's an award for the most pop song in the world and it's called 'hip hop'.

War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man.

A people which is able to say everything becomes able to do everything.

The transition from the defensive to the offensive is one of the most delicate operations in war.

In war, men are nothing, one man is everything.

I have fought sixty battles, and I have learnt nothing which I did not know at the beginning.

The first quality of a soldier is constancy in enduring fatigue and hardship. Courage is only the second. Poverty privation and want are the school of the good soldier.

He that makes war without many mistakes has not made war very long.

Men soon get tired of shedding their blood for the advantage of a few individuals, who think they amply reward the soldiers perils with the treasures they amass.

In war as in love, to bring matters to a close, you must get close together.

The art of war is to gain time when your strength is inferior.

a victor's peace is usually vindictive and stirs up a passion for revenge a generation or so later.

You are the harmony within which all things move. They are just illusion.

If liberals had been in charge of the Arizona memorial, it would probably have featured an exhaustive exhibit about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and little about the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Calling George Bush shallow is like calling a dwarf short.

You've lived through a lot of wars, I said. "Yes." Do they ever make more sense? "No.

You don't measure life by receiving awards.