Soldier Quotes - page 16
Ibn-ul-Asir says that Qutbuddin Aibak made "war against the provinces of Hind... He killed many, and returned home with prisoners and booty.” In Banaras, according to the same authority, Muhammad Ghauri's slaughter of the Hindus was immense. "None was spared except women and children." No wonder that slaves began to fill the households of every Turk from the very beginning of Muslim rule in India. Fakhr-i-Mudabbir informs us that as a result of the Muslim achievements under Muhammad Ghauri and Qutbuddin Aibak, "even a poor householder (or soldier) who did not possess a single slave before became the owner of numerous slaves of all description (jauq jauq ghulam har jins)...”.
Muhammad of Ghor
In case of a resumption of hostilities we are militarily in a position to reconquer, in the east, the province of Posen and to defend our frontier. In the west, we cannot, in view of the numerical superiority of the Entente and its ability to surround us on both flanks, count on repelling successfully a determined attack of our enemies. A favorable outcome of our operations is therefore very doubtful, but as a soldier I would rather perish in honor than sign a humiliating peace.
Paul von Hindenburg
I don't pretend to be anything but a soldier,” growled Galt.
"And it's precisely that that makes you dangerous in negotiations,” replied William. "Politicians and businessmen always feel more at home with someone who they know doesn't mean what he says. Honest men always have been a curse laid upon the sharpshooter.”
"A pity,” put in Anea, "that there aren't enough honest men, then, to curse them all.
Gordon R. Dickson
Five years ago I spent two and a half months in Berlin, and every day I visited the museum to have at least a brief look at this divine masterpiece [a portrait of the soldier of fortune, Alessandro del Borro, then attributed to Diego Velazquez, and later to an unknown master], and every day my soul sang in response to it stronger and stronger. I was very sick then, and that genius alone reconciled me to my life when there was so much suffering in it. Looking at his creation, at these lines, at these half-tones (remember that shadowed jaw against the background or the column against the dress), at all this charm of the art, at this grand style, I started to want to live again, to see it again and again, to live on by painting and perhaps by painting alone.
Marianne von Werefkin
Oh, no! It is impossible. War is a kind of game, and has its fixed rules, whereby, when we are well acquainted with them, we can pretty correctly tell how the trial will go. Tomorrow it seems, the die is to be cast, and, in my judgement, without the least chance on our side. The militia will, I suppose as usual, play the back game. That is, get out of battle as fast as their legs will carry them. But that, you know, won't do for me. I am an old soldier, and cannot run, and I believe I have some brave fellows that will stand by me to the last. So, when you hear of our battle, you will probably hear that your old friend, De Kalb, is at rest.
Johann de Kalb
No war is ever fought exactly like any other before it, and history is full of stories of commanders who came to grief trying to follow an old pattern of victory once too often. Whatever is new in tactics, equipment or method must be taught at the squad level before a soldier gets into combat.
Mark W. Clark
.. I write you from the French front where I'am serving as a soldier in the Russian ambulance Corps. How are you feeling and what are you doing? How are your friends, Lissitsky, Libakov [also former students of Pen], Mazel, Mekler, and Chagall? Please, for God's sake, answer me. I would be so glad to hear how everyone is.
I'm in fine health, but tired of it all – it's utterly disgraceful, makes the soul turn cold. If only it [the war] would just end.
What are you working on, what are you doing? Please write me.
Ossip Zadkine
Peons or servants are exceedingly numerous in this country... for every one-be he mounted soldier, merchant or king's official-keeps as many as his position and circumstances permit. Outside the house, they serve for display, running continually before their master's horse; inside, they do the work of the house, each knowing his duty...
Francisco Pelsaert
Among some of my military colleagues I nevertheless sense a lingering concern that the military served as the scapegoat of the war in Vietnam. I fail to share that concern. The military quite clearly did the job that the nation expected of it, and I am convinced that history will reflect more favorably upon the performance of the military than upon that of the politicians and policy makers. The American people can be proud that their military leaders scrupulously adhered to a basic tenet of our constitution prescribing civilian control of the military. As the soldier prays for peace he must be prepared to cope with the hardships of war and to bear its scars.
William Westmoreland
War is time that has marched through the mind, and is later presented in
such a way that boots are the be-all and end-all.
Thus it is important to teach the soldier exactly how to treat the ghosts, how
to address the fog, or
how time and space appear on paper to describe absolutely everything.
Do not say that was true in antiquity, as there the same sentence changed
many times, petrified into mountains,
precisely where it was open...
Paavo Haavikko
