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"Richard Hannay, I kept telling myself, you have got into the wrong ditch, my friend, and you had better climb out."

The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan 1915


I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern without any superhuman authority behind it.

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)


"O that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw away and resolve itself into a dew, or that the everlasting had not fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter. O God! God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this World!

Hamlet


'Don't mourn for me now, don't mourn me never. I going to do nothing for ever and ever.'

Dave Allen 2005


Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

 

Theodore Roosevelt


"You see, you have all the tools for a truce... If you must raise a memorial to me, let it be that. And the pardon of all concerned. I am a man of Wales, of Washington, of tribe of Subs. If we cannot find peace in life, let it be in death. May Lord God Bless us all."

Nicholas Seaford, Cpt.p. 515 Voices of Hope by David Feintuch


"He is of no account when he is at home. He never does anything except to warm himself and read.. He never went to market in his life. I have to look after all that. He just does nothing. He is the most useless, good-for-nothing man on earth."

Mary Todd on Abraham Lincoln


Up men to your posts. Remember, today that you are from old Virginia."

 

George Pickett, 1863.


I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Barry Goldwater 1964


Don't Delay: The best is the enemy of the good. By this I mean that a good plan executed violently now is better than a perfect plan next week. War is a very simple thing, and the determinating characteristics are self-confidence, speed, and audacity. None of these things can ever be perfect, but they can be good.

Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. War As I Knew It. 1947


Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you. Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself. 

 

Richard Nixon's farewell address, 1974.


Fondly we hope;
Fervently do we pray
that this mighty scourge of war might speedily pass away.
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled up by the bondsmen's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn from the lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword. As was said three thousand years ago, so still must it be said; the judgment of the lord are true and righteous altogether, with malice towards none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right lets us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nations wounds, to care for him who shall have born the battle, for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and all nations

Abraham Lincoln, Ordination Day, 4 March 1865


"If that you will France win, then with Scotland first begin."

English proverb


“Had I wanted war, I would not be here now. I should be on the prairie. You did not catch me. I gave myself up. You have got me because I wanted justice."


PÐTIKWAHANAPIWÐYIN (Poundmaker) (1842 -1886)


The end of History will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one's life for a purely abstract goal, the World wide struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination and idealism will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands. In the post-historic period there will be neither art, nor philosophy, just the perpetual caretaking of the museum of history.

Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the last man. 1992


A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn turn white; a curle'd pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hallow. But a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; rather the sun and not the moon - for it shines brightly and never changes but keeps his course truly...

Henry V


"I have come to Greece on a mission of peace, Captain. I bear the olive branch between my teeth. But far be it for me to interfere with military necessity. RETURN FIRE!" 

Churchill, Greece, 1944


"remember -- the enemy's gate is down."

 

 Andrew (Ender) Wiggin Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card 1977


 What was your favourite thing today?


My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

 

Gladiator (2000)


"a consistency proof for [any] system ... can be carried out only by means of modes of inference that are not formalized in the system ... itself."

 

Gödel


Eternal God we worship you for the love and grace we see in those who walk closely with you. We thank you for the men and women out of every generation and nation who have lived out their life as an example of faith for us all. We commend into your Fatherly care all our loved ones who have passed from this life into that fuller life of Heaven.   Give us grace so that we too will live in faith in Christ, and be loyal to you and your commandments of love, so that we too will come in your good time to your eternal Kingdom.  

 

Les Miles (1929-2003)


Touchstone's seven degrees of lies.

 

1. Retort courteous

2. The quib modest

3. The reply cuurlish

4. The reproof valient

5. Countercheck quarrelsum

6. The lie circumstantial

7. The lie direct


Human fish, swimming at the bottom of the great ocean of atmosphere, develop psychic injuries as they collide with one another. Most mortal of all are those gotten from the parent fish.

Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate (1958 )


Gonghé = work together


"We apologise for the inconvenience”

God's Final Message to His Creation. Chapter 40 of So long, and Thanks for All the Fish, the fourth book of the trilogy in five parts "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams (1952-2001).


“Invent damn silly argument, like this. Golfer hits ball. Ball lands on tuft of grass-so. Probability ball landed in tuft very small, very very very small. Million other tufts for ball to land on. Probability very small, very very very small. So golfer did not hit ball, ball deliberately guided on tuft. Is damn silly argument… “What Alexis means I think,” explained Kingsley, “is that we are not justified in supposing that there were any particular targets. The fallacy in the argument about the golfer lies in choosing a particular tuft of grass as a target, when obviously the golfer didn't think of it in those terms before he made his shot.”

Chapter 12 The Black Cloud 1957 Fred Hoyl


When you are sweeping, know that you are sweeping.

 

Gautama Siddhartha (Buddha)


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