"We hoped to land a wild cat that would tear out the bowels of the Boche. Instead we have stranded a vast whale with its tail flopping about in the water."
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War quotes
War
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War quotes (page 205 of 853)
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"You know, in war, you don't have to be nice. You only have to be right."
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"But who in war will not have his laugh amid the skulls?"
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"We sit in calm, airy, silent rooms opening upon sunlit and embowered lawns, not a sound except of summer and of husbandry disturbs the peace; but seven million men, any ten thousand of whom could have annihilated the ancient armies, are in ceaseless battle from the Alps to the Ocean."
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"The old wars were decided by their episodes rather than by their tendencies. In this war, the tendencies are far more important than the episodes."
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"Without ships, we cannot live."
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"My ability to persuade my wife to marry me was quite my most brilliant achievement ... Of course, it would have been impossible for any ordinary man to have got through what I had to go through in peace and war without the devoted aid of what we call, in England, one's better half."
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"I wanted us to go to the Tories when we were strong...not in misfortune to be made an honest woman of."
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"Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! ... How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care ... We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end ... Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force."
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"Indeed I do not think we should be justified in using any but the more sombre tones and colours while our people, our Empire, and indeed the whole English-speaking world are passing through a dark and deadly valley."
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"The salvation of the common people of every race and of every land from war or servitude must be established on solid foundations and must be guarded by the readiness of all men and women to die rather than submit to tyranny."
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"There is no working middle course in wartime."
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"The is always much to be said for not attempting more than you can do and for making a certainty of what you try. But this principle, like others in life and war, has it exceptions."
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"The cat does more for the war effort than you do. He acts as a hot-water bottle and saves fuel and power."
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"If, however, there is to be a war of nerves let us make sure our nerves are strong and are fortified by the deepest convictions of our hearts."
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"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."
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"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."
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"The late M. Venizelos observed that in all her wars Englandhe should have said Britain, of coursealways wins one battlethe last."
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"War, which used to be cruel and magnificent has now become cruel and squalid."
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"England has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame and will get war."
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