Historical Quotes

[s.c.dude]

There is an exception to every rule including this one-unknown

And so the music dies-Beethoven's last words

if sh*t happens sh*t should happen to soldiers-somebody around these forums

disseminate to your content

 

[Taliesin]

I understood Beethoven's last words to be, "Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est."

 

[Cuchullain]

Anyone have a good quote about the power of trade?

I think these will suffice:

"The smell of profit is clean and sweet, whatever the source," Juvenal

"The wealth of a nation consists not in its mass of material things, but in its system. The natural resources of South America are not inferior to those of the United States, but the wealth of the two regions is vastly different. The land of India is far richer than that of Japan, but the wealth of the two nations is reversed," George Broackway

 

[Cuchullain]

This one is one of my favorites:

"The proverb warns that You shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you. But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself," Thomas Szasz

 

[Adler17]

"A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?"

Albert Einstein

Adler

 

[Verbose]

"The smell of profit is clean and sweet, whatever the source," Juvenal

"Non olet." (It doesnt smell.)
- Emperor Vespasian, to his son Titus (holding a coin under his nose, or so its said) when the latter complained over how his father's greed had made him have the citizens of Rome pay for using the public toilets.

 

[Cuchullain]

"Killing a man is murder, unless you do it to the sounds of trumpets," Voltaire

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god" - Jean Rostand, Thoughts of a Biologist (1939)

"Vote early and vote often." - Al Capone

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

You get farther with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone.

Al Capone (paraphrased)

 

[Adler17]

At negotiations talk quietly, but take a great stick with you.

Abraham Lincoln

Adler

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Or, the more famous version:


"Speak softly, and carry a big stick" - Teddy Roosevelt

 

[Adler17]

"Who is defending his own opinion with other weapons as the intellect, I have to assume he has no more weapons of intellect."

Otto von Bismarck

 

[Che Guava]

I just finished a great little paperback on the life of Otto von Bismark. One of the favourites that I read (which made me think of the EU):

I have always found the word "Europe" in the mouths of those politicians who wanted from other powers something they did not dare to demand in their own name.

 

[Adler17]

"The popularity of a matter oblieges to ask: is it really neccessary?"

"A great state is not to be governed by notions of a party."

"Today there is no other word than free, which is so much abused. I do not trust the word, because no one wants liberty for all, but for himself."

"We are all sick because of bureaucracy."

"The awe of responsibility is one great illness of our time."

Otto von Bismarck

I do really wonder, if it has changed so much...

 

[Steph]

"Today there is no other word than free, which is so much abused. I do not trust the word, because no one wants liberty for all, but for himself."
...
I do really wonder, if it has changed so much...

Yes, it has changed a lot. Now, instead of "free", we hear "freedom" all the time.

 

[DAv2003]

"If we should win this battle, you shall be slaughtered, your children sent to slavery, your women raped and your cities razed to the ground."

Message from an enemey commander to a Spartan army.

"Yes, if."

Reply to aforementioned message.

 

[Verbose]

"You talk too much."

Spartan soldier to the Athenian admiral in charge of a naval blockade, who on a daily basis had made it his business to taunt the Spartans from the saftey of his ship.
Said on the occassion when the Spartans finally broke the blockade, in the middle of the melee this entailed, and just before the Spartan ran the Athenian through.

 

[privatehudson]

From the Spartan tendency to be concise comes the origin of the word Laconic.

 

[Adler17]

"Few think, but many wants to decide."

"To have knowledge all can have, but the art of thinking is the rarest gift of nature."

"God is with the strongest bataillions."

"A government must spare, because the money she gets, is from the blood and sweat of her population. It is just, that everyone is helping to pay the costs of the state. But it isn't justified, if he has to share the half of his income with the state." (He didn't know the taxes now...)

Frederic the Great

Adler

 

[s.c.dude]

"war is to serious a matter to be entrusted to the military"-french guy

"some say war is fought by man not machines but look now the uav's have hellfires!"-american troop