Documents Quotes

“Yamamoto was considered, both in Japan and the United States, as intelligent, capable, aggressive, and dangerous. Motivated by his skill as a poker player and casino gambler, he was continually calculating odds on an endless variety of options. He played bridge and chess better than most good players. Like most powerful leaders he was articulate and persuasive, and once in a position of power he pushed his agenda relentlessly. Whether he would push his odds successfully in the Pacific remained to be seen.”
― Dale A. Jenkins, Diplomats & Admirals: From Failed Negotiations and Tragic Misjudgments to Powerful Leaders and Heroic Deeds, the Untold Story of the Pacific War from Pearl Harbor to Midway

“Yamamoto sensed a feeling of culmination about the huge success of the first strike, and the same incisive intuition that guided his brilliant moves at the gaming tables told him what the next move on the bridge of Akagi would be. In (Vice Admiral) Nagumo he knew his man. Nagumo had never been committed to the Pearl Harbor mission. He had not been Yamamoto’s choice to command the Striking Force; his assignment was the decision of the Navy Ministry in Tokyo, based on seniority. While the exultation of the officers and sailors on his staff swirled around him, Yamamoto sat quietly. Finally, he fixed a steely gaze on his chief of staff, and in a low, intense voice: “Admiral Nagumo is going to withdraw.”
― Dale A. Jenkins, Diplomats & Admirals: From Failed Negotiations and Tragic Misjudgments to Powerful Leaders and Heroic Deeds, the Untold Story of the Pacific War from Pearl Harbor to Midway

“Padre Crittle: … While resting on the side of the road I saw Amah Singh, one of the oldest Sikh inhabitants of Kamaing. He was walking very slowly with the aid of a bamboo. When he saw me he stopped and begged for something to eat. “Only half a biscuit, Sahib, only half a biscuit.” I am sure that he did not believe me when I told him I hadn’t got half a biscuit in the world …”
― Elizabeth Tebby Germaine, EXTRAORDINARY TRUE STORIES OF SURVIVAL IN BURMA WW2: tens of thousands fled to India from the Japanese Invasion in 1942

“Let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“Ancient documents described the symbol as an ambigram—ambi meaning
“both”—signifying it was legible both ways. And although ambigrams were common in symbology—
swastikas, yin yang, Jewish stars, simple crosses—the idea that a word could be crafted into an
ambigram seemed utterly impossible.”
― Dan Brown, Angels & Demons

“It can be a good thing if deeper theology, or philosophy, only makes one more uncertain. It may lead to a healthy doubt; he may throw his hands up saying, 'God, I just don't know anymore. If you're out there, I'm giving it all to you.' From there, after the surrender, he is allowing God himself, rather than theories, books, and documents, to take over and lead him into all truth.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“History is one way in which a society recognizes
and develops a mass of documentation with which it is inextricably linked.”
― Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Discourse on Language

“I had learned years ago never to give original documents to anyone if I could help it.”
― Tahir Shah, In Search of King Solomon's Mines

“I never felt able to describe my emotional reactions when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency.

I have never at any other time experienced an equal sense of shock.

I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that "the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda." Some members of the visiting party were unable to go through the ordeal. I not only did so but as soon as I returned to Patton's headquarters that evening I sent communications to both Washington and London, urging the two governments to send instantly to Germany a random group of newspaper editors and representative groups from the national legislatures. I felt that the evidence should be immediately placed before the American and British publics in a fashion that would leave no room for cynical doubt.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Those who searched the day for something to eat were not interested in documents, sensitive or not.”
― Ishmael Beah, Little Family

“It was clear to me after reading OSHA supplied company documents that the dangerous Desoto Solar Farm had been in the process of terminating me weeks before the termination actually occurred.”
― Steven Magee

“History doesn’t whisper to the brave—it waits for them to listen."
— Chris Watson, The Concord Protocol”
― Chris Watson, C.L. Watson