Favorite Historical Quotes

[Chance]

I was doing some Googling around the site and I couldn't find a thread about this. We've had movie quotes, but not historical quotes...?

My SO is watching 'The Crown,' and seeing John Lithgow as Churchill is reminding me of a ton of Churchill's more famous remarks. Anyways, I thought it'd be fun to share them. Some are inane, others are serious.

First:



"I may be drunk, miss, but in the morning, I will be sober, and you will still be ugly." - Winston Churchill

"We shall not fail or falter. We shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job." - Winston Churchill

"It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required." - Winston Churchill

(Hopefully all of those are historically accurate - I haven't researched them in depth.)

And some quotes from others.

"I'd rather go down the river with seven studs than with a hundred shitheads." - Charlie Beckwith

"Well, 'get overrun,' 'not make it,' ...it's a relative term. You can get overrun and still make it - you just got to kill everybody." - Paul Howe

"Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein

"A person who never made mistake never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein

"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein

[Joe in PNG]

"Damn it, boys, they're getting away!"- anon sailor during the Battle off Samar

[El Cid]

One of mine:

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American … There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

Theodore Roosevelt 1907


Another:
"We're paratroopers, we're supposed to be surrounded." Dick Winters

[blues]

"Trust, like the soul, once departed never returns." - Publilius Syrus

[P30]

"Sapere aude!" = "Dare to think for yourself!" (Horace, Immanuel Kant et al.)

Kant claimed the phrase as the motto of the Age of Enlightenment. I hope for a new Age of Enlightenment. These days, too many people only parrot what the mainstream media say. Not good.

[SeriousStudent]

"I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years."

SECDEF James Mattis
- USMC, retired.

[Stephanie B]

“If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” — Curtis LeMay

[alohadoug]

He who gives up liberty for security,
Gets neither and that is what he deserves.

Ben Franklin

[Bigguy]

"So I said to myself, 'Self! Looks we've gotten ourself in trouble.' "

~1978 — Relief Mate "Stinky" - MV Bernese .

[LOKNLOD]

"When one with honeyed words but evil mind
Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.”
Euripides, Orestes, 408 BC