Steve Groves

“This myth called bravery, which is half panic, half-lunacy (in my case, all panic), pays for all; in England you can’t be a hero and bad. There’s practically a law against it.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman

“The steady economic and social progress made throughout Greece from the seventh to the late fifth century B.C attests to the singular genius of Hoplite warfare: it was a system that prevented the constant and inevitable internecine struggles from having any harmful lasting influence on the culture of the Greek city-state.”
― Victor Davis Hanson, The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece by Victor Davis Hanson

“The presence especially of old men in the ranks also ensured that battle was not seen as a youthful frolic where both sides lined up in some strange game of chicken. Instead, the elders taught the younger men that such decisive fighting was the only way to end the ordeal as quickly as possible.”
― Victor Davis Hanson, The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece by Victor Davis Hanson

“Imperialism, however, lays burdens, both economic and political, upon the homeland of the conquerors, and its rewards are often illusory…A nation cannot live, or fancy itself to be living, by the efforts of subjects overseas, without some demoralization of its public life at home.”
― J H Parry, Age of Reconnaissance Discovery Explorat