Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Great Quotes

I did not say these and there certainly are many more.


Abraham Lincoln (16th president of US)

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing."

"Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived."

"I will prepare and some day my chance will come"

"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"



The quotations page


Sir Winston Churchill

"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations."

My Early Life, 1930

"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."

Radio speech, 1939

"For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else."

speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet, London, November 9, 1954

"Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to

force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

Speech, 1941, Harrow School

"Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed."

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."


The Quotations Page


My Favourites


"Never, never, never give up."

"We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival."


Sir Winston Churchill



" I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the Alter of Freedom."

Abraham Lincoln

From The collected works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VIII, Letter to Mrs. Lydia Bixby (November 21, 1864, pp. 116-117)



"Look around you. In the 7th Cavalry, we got a Captain from the Ukraine. Another from Puerto Rico. We've got Japanese, Chinese, Blacks, Hispanics, Cherokee Indians, Jews and Gentiles -- all Americans. Now here in the States, some men in this Unit may experience discrimination because of race or creed. But for you and me now, all that is gone. We're moving into the 'valley of the shadow of death' -- where you will watch the back of the man next to you, as he will watch yours. And you won't care what color he is or by what name he calls God."

"They say we're leavin' home. We're goin' to what home was always supposed to be. So let us understand the situation. We are goin' into battle against a tough and determined enemy. I can't promise you that I will bring you all home alive. But this I swear before you and before Almighty God: That when we go into battle, I will be the first to set foot on the field, and I will be the last to stop off. And I will leave no one behind."

"Dead or alive, we will all come home together."

"So help me God."

Lieutenant Colonel Harold "Hal" G. Moore: Address to the 7th Cavalry
"We Were Soldiers"
(2002)