#battle

An agile, well-trained, brave elephant, ridden by a good mahout, its trunk armed with the kind of sabre known as a qartal and covered with chain mail, while the rest of its body is protected by sheets of bark and iron, surrounded by 500 men to defend it and protect it to the rear, can fight against 6000 men on horseback. ↗

— Mas'udi

#elephants #war #men

Then the creatures of the high air answered to the battle, foretelling the destruction that would be done that day; and the sea chattered of the losses, and the waves gave heavy shouts keening them, and the water-beasts roared to one another, and the rough hills creaked with the danger of the battle, and the woods trembled mourning the heroes, and the grey stones cried out at their deeds, and the wind sobbed telling them, and the earth shook, foretelling the slaughter; and the cries of the grey armies put a cloak over the sun, and the clouds were dark; and the hounds and the whelps and the crows, and the witches of the valley, and the powers of the air, and the wolves of the forests, howled from every quarter and on every side of the armies, urging them against one another. ↗

— Augusta Gregory

#pathetic-fallacy #men

I caught a glimpse of him thinking of the final combat in the movies, Harry versus Voldemort, Spider-Man versus the Green Goblin. ↗

— Joss Stirling

#final-battles #movies

Whenever we want to combat our enemies, first and foremost we must start by understanding them rather than exaggerating their motives. ↗

— Criss Jami

#battle #bias #combat #discernment #disputes

Developments in information technology and globalised media mean that the most powerful military in the history of the world can lose a war, not on the battlefield of dust and blood, but on the battlefield of world opinion. ↗

— Timothy Garton Ash

#blood #developments #dust #history #information

The world's battlefields have been in the heart chiefly; more heroism has been displayed in the household and the closet, than on the most memorable battlefields in history. ↗

— Henry Ward Beecher

#been #chiefly #closet #displayed #heart

By showing hunger, deprivation, starvation and brutality, as well as endurance and nobility, documentaries inform, prod our memories, even stir us to action. Such films do battle for our very soul. ↗

— Theodore Bikel

#battle #brutality #deprivation #documentaries #endurance

Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip. ↗

— Barbara Tuchman

#dead #generals #grip #hold #like

In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event. ↗

— Theodore Bikel

#art #battles #cares #comes #down

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. ↗

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

#battle #found #i #indispensable #planning