Samuel Johnson

The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.

The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.

Exercise is labor without weariness.

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.

Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.

Prudence operates on life in the same manner as rule of composition; it produces vigilance rather than elevation; rather prevents loss than procures advantage; and often miscarriages, but seldom reaches either power or honor.

That’s what an army is – a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.

It’s been a big week for our side. Over on the beaches of Normandy our boys have fired the opening guns of the long awaited drive to liberate the world.

I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases.

The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on.

I sincerely want peace, not because I lack resources for war, but because I hate bloodshed.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.

Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is likely to be dull.

When we went into World War II, I was a tractor driver then. I drove tractors on the plantation. So when they start calling people my age, 18, up, I was one they called.

Give me ten thousand Filipino soldiers and I will conquer the world.

What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars.

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.

A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.