#warfare

The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself. They are in a lose/lose situation. If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are a scoundrel... if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot. So here is a dilemma which others have suffered before us, and for which as far as I can see there is simply no escape. ↗

— Martin Van Creveld

#fourth-generation-warfare #change

Fill my mouth with the accuracy and potency of Your word and Spirit that I may make war through prayer with swift precision (Psalm 144:1). ↗

— Shawntel Jefferson

#kids-books #prayer #warfare-prayers #change

...the world was trying to change its old face and show its underbelly of earth and roots. ↗

— Italo Calvino

#warfare #change

What passing bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifle's rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers, nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells, And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes, Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall, Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each, slow dusk a drawing down of blinds. ↗

— Wilfred Owen

#war #warfare #anger

Why all this death? You might as easily ask ‘Why all this life?’. ↗

— Daniel McHugh

#fantasy #magic #warfare #wizards #death

Horror would not annoy a soldier any more than the sight of a hammer annoys a carpenter. It is sentimental to pretend that horror is not the tool of the soldier, just as the hammer is the tool of the carpenter. We live off death and the threat of death and we must take it calmly and use it well.... Eventually I came to enjoy killing, as a pianist enjoys the Czerny which keeps his fingers limber for the Beethoven. ↗

— Irwin Shaw

#warfare #death

Someday I'll be a weather-beaten skull resting on a grass pillow, Serenaded by a stray bird or two. Kings and commoners end up the same, No more enduring than last night's dream. ↗

— Ryokan

#dreams

When you give up on your dream or give in to your challenges, you abort your dream and give the devil something to rejoice over! You also disappoint the Lord Jesus, who is waiting for you to enforce the victory he won on your behalf at Calvary. ↗

— Pedro Okoro

#dreams

Populism and elitism are the same thing. They are class prejudices, crude class prejudices that so-and-so, because they are uneducated, is less worthy, or so-and-so, because they are richer or more educated, is unworthy. ↗

— David Brooks

#education

A man without equals is a dangerous man indeed. He must exercise the most difficult of attributes, restraint. ↗

— Daniel McHugh

#fantasy #magic #warfare #wizards-of-waverly-place #equality