Defence Quotes

“The Ganeva conference on Indochina agreements stated that the south of Vietnam would be handed over to a provisional administration after two years at the most and that general elections would be held in 1956 at the latest, giving Vietnam a single and united government. (due to American actions, the agreements were never put into place)”
― Michael G. Kramer, A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume One

“The Geneva peace accords said that it recognized the nationality and fundamental rights of the Vietnamese people including their sovereignty, their territory and unity. Due to the Geneva Conference allowing the imperialist combined forces of the Franco-USA coalition, on the one hand to hold South Vietnam under the 17th parallel and allowing the National resistance by the People of Vietnam to hold the north on the other, it stopped the Vietnamese from completely liberating their country. (Vein, 2009)”
― Michael G. Kramer, A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume One

“As well, I want our special force commandos to silently slip into Cat Bi and Gia Lam airfields and destroy the aircraft stationed there. That will deal the French forces at Dien Bien Phu a stunning blow!” (Giap, 1990)”
― Michael G. Kramer, A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume One

“Cairo. An inter-services game of cricket was in progress in the lush grounds behind him as Powell made his way through the grand portal of the Gezira Sporting Club. It was a hot and humid day and Powell was dripping with sweat. A fellow officer had given him a lift for part of the way but he had had to walk the last mile. Uniformed Egyptian attendants bowed and guided him through the lobby towards the bar, where he could see his host with a drink already in hand.”
― Mark Ellis, The French Spy

“So Admiral, the marshal tells me your trip to Paris was a success.” Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan, admiral of France and the senior minister in Marshal Philippe Pétain’s Vichy government, stroked his cheek. “Yes, all went well as planned, Pierre, although little has been finalised as yet.”
Pierre Laval, former prime minister of France and, until recently, vice-president of Vichy France’s Cabinet of Ministers, chuckled and patted his companion on the knee. “The marshal mentioned no qualifications. He told me you had got everything he wanted from the Germans.”
― Mark Ellis, The French Spy

“England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control - that, perhaps is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.”
― George Orwell, Why I Write

“No one has the rights to summon you. Only Stardust. And that because she’s your mother and not the queen.”
― Andri E. Elia, Yildun: Worldmaker of Yand

“At headquarters I tried to suppress some of the more fantastic rumours. After the bombing of Rangoon and many other places by Japanese Aircraft the local bazaars buzzed with rumours. One was to the effect the Germans had occupied Rangoon. …many villagers were openly discussing their coming flight to distant places of safety. Some hooligans, I had reason to believe, were planning to loot the Indian and Chinese shops and were storing large quantities of knives and spears in some caves in jungle places … One night I stood
at the door of my house which overlooked the surrounding country and watched the outline of flames in various directions. The dome of heaven was splashed with a bloody glare as one burst of flame succeeded another. The night seemed to emphasise the feeling of universal
unease … Captain Gribble”
― Elizabeth Tebby Germaine, EXTRAORDINARY TRUE STORIES OF SURVIVAL IN BURMA WW2: tens of thousands fled to India from the Japanese Invasion in 1942

“Why on earth do you carry a mirror around with you?”
“It's purely a defensive device. We seldom quarrel, and this is one of the reasons. Can you imagine yourself getting all worked up and contorted and illogical and then coming face to face with yourself, looking at yourself exactly as you look to everyone else?”
― Theodore Sturgeon, Venus Plus X

“Any philosophy, whether of a religious or political nature - and sometimes the dividing line is hard to determine - fights less for the negative destruction of the opposing ideology than for the positive promotion of its own. Hence its struggle is less defensive than offensive. It therefore has the advantage even in determining the goal, since this goal represents the victory of its own idea, while, conversely,it is hard to determine when the negative aim of the destruction of a hostile doctrine may be regarded as achieved and assured. For this reason alone, the philosophy's offensive will be more systematic and also more powerful than the defensive against a philosophy, since here, too, as always, the attack and not the defence makes the decision. The fight against a spiritual power with methods of violence remains defensive, however, until the sword becomes the support,the herald and disseminator, of a new spiritual doctrine.”
― Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

“You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended.You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“It’s so easy to lose faith and become lost in all of the politics of the world. That’s why we need the arts. To sublimate our frustration and anger into something beautiful. Freud called sublimation a virtuous defence mechanism because it is in the arts that we can find our humanity.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“Uniform of a soldier and uniform of a student both are equally needed for the nation.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Civilians enjoy their time because soldiers sacrifice their time.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“The security theater we are witnessing in our election system boasting the illusion of security via ‘clunky as heck’ and air gap defense will do nothing against the real and sophisticated adversarial landscape that is zeroing in on our democracy”
― James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

“Show the world the man you think you are, and I will show the world the man you really are...”
― Timothy Norr

“An aggressive nation will spend and sacrifice to win a war; an amicable nation will do the same to prevent a war.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“In criminal proceedings, laymen might assume it's one person versus another, but it's not—it's the state versus the defendant. That means that you, the victim, do not have anyone on your side by default, while defendants have lawyers who are eager to tear into you from all angles. You are an asset to the state's case, not the other way around.”
― Zoe Quinn, Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate

“The symposium was a closed-doors, synod-style assembly of people who would never have mixed otherwise. My first surprise was to discover that the military people there thought, behaved, and acted like philosophers—far more so than the philosophers we will see splitting hairs in their weekly colloquium in Part Three. They thought out of the box, like traders, except much better and without fear of introspection. An assistant secretary of defence was among us, but had I not known his profession I would have thought he was a practitioner of skeptical empiricism. Even an engineering investigator who had examined the cause of a space shuttle explosion was thoughtful and open-minded. I came out of the meeting realising that only military people deal with randomness with genuine, introspective intellectual honesty—unlike academics and corporate executives using other people's money. This does not show in war movies, where they are usually portrayed as war-hungry autocrats. The people in front of me were not the people who initiate wars. Indeed, for many, the successful defence policy is the one that manages to eliminate potential dangers without war, such as the strategy of bankrupting the Russians through the escalation in defence spending. When I expressed my amazement to Laurence, another finance person who was sitting next to me, he told me that the military collected more genuine intellects and risk thinkers than most if not all other professions. Defence people wanted to understand the epistemology of risk.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“Mungu ana uwezo wa kukuwekea ulinzi kulia na kushoto yaani anayekulinda naye ana mlinzi wake. Lakini wakati mwingine anaacha ufuate kile ambacho moyo wako unataka kwa sababu hataki kukulazimisha ijapokuwa uwezo huo anao. Mungu hakukuumba kuwa roboti. Alikuumba kuwa huru kuchagua mema au mabaya usije ukamlaumu baadaye kwamba ulimchagua yeye kwa sababu hukuwa na uhuru. Msikilize Roho wa Mungu, kabla na katika kila jambo unalofanya.”
― Enock Maregesi

“God is my security.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Four people, six guns. That’s a much better equation than we ever could have hoped for. There are, I guess, more guns floating around in Australia than most people would imagine. But there still aren’t that many, and I reckon we’re doing better than most survivors.
On the other hand, maybe the only reason we're survivors at all is because we have guns. If we hadn’t found that Glock, what might have happened as we ran for Liam’s truck in Manjimup? If we hadn’t traded the Kawasaki for the Winchester, what might have happened the night we met Ellie, when I fired a warning shot to scare off her attackers, and they left without a fight?
I don’t need to ask what might have happened the night in Albany, when the soldiers were chasing us over backyard fences. I know exactly what would have happened.”
― Shane Carrow

“Some are strong because they want to wreak havoc. Some are strong because they want to stand up to those who wreak havoc.”
― Monaristw

“And on my judgment day i will say in my defence that at least i didn't stand-by at the face of injustice”
― Herman Ntladi

“There are times when you do not have to defend yourself when allegations are levelled against you. Pray, fast and ask God to defend you. He is your best line of defence and He is able to wipe your tears with His presence.”
― Gift Gugu Mona, Prayer: An Antidote for the Inner Man

“On October 24, H.E. President Maharaja Hari Singh ji appealed to India for military aid to flush out the raiders. India obliged but not before the Instrument of Accession was signed on October 26. It limited India’s powers over the Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh to matters of defence, communications, and foreign affairs.”
― Maharaja Hari Singh-Accession

“I’m told the role of the Jedi is to serve and defend.”
“You were told wrongly,” C’baoth countered. “The role of the Jedi is to lead and guide, and to destroy all threats.”
― Timothy Zahn, Star Wars: Outbound Flight

“If Israel defends itself too fully from people who joyfully wish it harm—people who behead others as a negotiating tactic—the world will choke Israel economically. If they don’t defend vigorously enough, more of its citizens get killed. The world has imposed the Vietnam standard on Israel: it isn’t currently allowed to end local terrorism by winning! And so, there will be a next war”
― David Naggar, The Case for a Larger Israel

“Protect your every weakness. Expose it as a strength, and the enemy will have nothing left to attack at all.”
― Anje Kruger

“Then I am sorry for you, mistress," I said evenly. "But that has nothing to do to me. Do not dare to assume you know my mind or history. That is insolence and I will not have it. I will not be your scapegoat!" And with that I turned and walked away, leaving her standing alone in the street.”
― C.J. Sansom, Sovereign