and stood straight as a sentry on post, hands at her sides. “You know something, Sam? It’s all a pretty little fraud. This whole band-playing, spit-and-polish system you’re wound up in. It is simply insane. The system says you’re all noble
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“This world isn’t governed by honorable men, but by lawyers and politicians, and whenever such scum come across an honest man they have to kill him.”
― Sharpe's Devil
― Sharpe's Devil
“Like the Indian Wars, it would leave a troubled feeling, a trauma, in its wake. Crusades, even when failures, are emotionally satisfying. Wars of containment, wars of policy, are not. They are hard to justify unless it is admitted that power, not idealism, is the dominant factor in the world, and that idealism must be backed by power.”
― This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War
― This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War
“Oddly, they were never sanguine about their own combat prowess. Most of them, officers and men, felt a deep respect for, and almost an inferiority before, the various professionals that comprised the other U.N. troops in Korea. Their praise of the allies—the French, Thais, Turks, and Abyssinians—was far removed from the grousing about allies that had marked most previous wars. Most Americans, privately, would admit the U.N. troops were better than they were.”
― This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War
― This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War
“the cynical could afford the luxury of their cynicism because of the stability of the system they mocked.”
― The Consuming Fire
― The Consuming Fire
“It’s this: Confidence isn’t about knowing you’re right. Confidence is about knowing you can make it right.”
― The Consuming Fire
― The Consuming Fire
Matthew’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Matthew’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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