Socrates

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.

Let him that would move the world, first move himself.

How many are the things I can do without!

I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether.

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.

Once war is forced upon us, there is no alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War’s very object is victory-not prolonged indecision.

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

We are not retreating – we are advancing in another Direction

I have a deep sympathy with war, it so apes the gait and bearing of the soul.

That’s what an army is – a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.

A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.

War is not a matter for the professional pacifist or militarist. It is for the unprofessional people. They finance and fight it, they bear its losses. Therefore, they should have the deciding voice concerning it. To do this, they require all the information upon which decisions are made. They should know in a difference, whether it is soluble by rational intelligence, or inevitable by force. Not once in a thousand instances would our people (this may not be true of all peoples, however) approve an offensive war. Never would they be lax in defensive action. For this is their country. However, most of their enemies are within it.

The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash.

What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars.

In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Goodwill.

Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling ones pulse and taking ones temperature. I see that a speaker at the week-end said that this was a time when leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture.

Thus, then, on the night of the tenth of May, at the outset of this mighty battle, I acquired the chief power in the State, which henceforth I wielded in ever-growing measure for five years and three months of world war, at the end of which time, all our enemies having surrendered unconditionally or being about to do so, I was immediately dismissed by the British electorate from all further conduct of their affairs.

People didn’t want war. We were forced in it. How fast we finish it depends on how free a hand our generals and admirals have. The less interference they get from the politicians the quicker they’ll end it.

I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.