All Quotes

"Fleet Admiral William Daniel Leahy's death was announced by the US Navy. On July 22 at noon, his casket was moved into the Bethlehem Chapel of the Episcopal Cathedral in Washington, DC, and for the next twenty-four hours his body lay surrounded by a naval honor guard before being brought into the nave for the funeral. His eleven honorary pallbearers consisted of his old friend Bill Hassett and ten naval officers who included his few remaining living friends from the Annapolis class of 1897. After the service, a motor procession brought the admiral to his final resting place in Arlington Cemetery. A nineteen-gun salute was fired, and then Leahy was laid beside his wife, Louise, where she had awaited him for seventeen years. Neither Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, nor George Marshall were in attendance. Newspapers marked his passing, but the articles were perfunctory and often mistaken. The New York Times noted how he had all but disappeared from the public mind, having lived as a "recluse" for the past for years. The Washington Post missed his importance entirely, writing, "Yet despite his inner position, his contribution to evolving defense concepts probably was not profound." When George Marshall died three months later, the reaction could not have been more different. President Eisenhower issued a public proclamation announcing Marshall's passing and extolling his greatness. He ordered that the national flag be flown at half-mast on all US government buildings, military facilities, and warships, both at home and abroad, and to be kept that way until after the funeral. both Truman and Eisenhower attended the funeral, and Truman described Marshall as "the greatest general since Robert E. Lee... the greatest administrator since Thomas Jefferson. He was the man of honor, the man of truth, the man of greatest ability. He was the greatest of the great in our time." The general's death was soon followed by a hagiographic biography, the foundation of Marshall scholarships, a Marshall library, Marshall public schools, Marshall awards- a whole industry to perpetuate his memory. To this day, historians claim, with scant evidence, that he determined US strategy in World War II."

"George Marshall had continued to fade slowly through various health problems, but in early 1959 he suffered an incapacitating stroke in Pinehurst, North Carolina. It took until the spring for him to be safely transported to Walter Reed, where he declined from wheelchair to full-time bed rest to oxygen, catheter, and feeding tubes, in and out of consciousness. John Foster Dulles was also on the same floor, near the end of his life, and Ike brought the visiting Winston Churchill in for one final meeting with his faithful secretary of state. On the way out, they looked in on George Marshall, the man Churchill had honored at the coronation of his own queen. The general had not the slightest idea who either of them were. They both left somberly, Churchill wiping tears from his eyes. Marshall hung on until the fall and died quietly in the early evening of October 16, 1959. He had left explicit instructions forbidding a funeral at the National Cathedral or lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda. He wanted no eulogy, and his interment was to be private. He left a short guest list that included Bob Lovett "if it is convenient" and Beetle Smith "if he is in town," but not Ike, though he left it up to Katherine to invite more guests as she thought appropriate. On October 20, a brilliant autumn day, his coffin was brought to the Fort Myer chapel for a short service. Before the family entered, Harry Truman and his former military aide, along with Dwight Eisenhower with his own aide, settled into the same pew in icy silence. When the abbreviated Episcopal rites were over, a caisson took the coffin down the hill from the Arlington National Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to a grave next to the ones Lily and her mother had been buried in decades earlier. Katherine would join them there in 1978. Fittingly, his legacy is preserved primarily at the George C. Marshall Research Library on the campus of the Virginia Military Institute."

"Vincent Lingiari, I solemnly hand to you these deeds as proof, in Australian law, that these lands belong to the Gurindji people and I put into your hands part of the earth itself as a sign that this land will be the possession of you and your children forever."

"General George Marshall, Army Chief of Staff during World War II, wanted desperately to lead the D-Day invasion of Europe. Any general would want to lead the "Great Crusade." But that didn't happen. The assignment went to General Eisenhower, one of his protégés and junior to him. President Roosevelt, well aware of how badly Marshall wanted the mission, discussed it with him. At the end of the conversation, as Marshall was leaving, Roosevelt said gently, "Well, I didn't feel that I could sleep at ease if you were out of Washington." Marshall, that great man, knew his place was not to wade into the surf out of a landing craft in the Philippines or command the assault on the Normandy beaches, but to ensure that MacArthur and Eisenhower could."

"I couldn't sleep nights, George, if you were out of Washington."

"I have never seen a task of such magnitude performed by a man... I have seen a great many soldiers in my lifetime and you, Sir, are the finest soldier I have ever known."

"Douglas MacArthur was the last great 19th century soldier, while George Marshall was the first great 20th century soldier."

"General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, was F.D.R.'s ablest strategist."

"In a war unparalleled in magnitude and horror, millions of Americans gave their country outstanding service; General of The Army George C. Marshall gave it victory."

"In all my contacts with Marshall I found him as a rule coolly impersonal, with little humor. He could laugh, but he never gave evidence of a deep-seated pleasure in life. I know of many acts of kindness and thoughtfulness on his part, and I myself had reason to be grateful to him for having given me the opportunity to prove my worth as a planner, but he kept everyone at arm's length. It was typical of him that no one I knew, with the exception of General Stilwell, ever called him by his Christian name or was on terms of even the beginnings of familiarity with George Catlett Marshall."

"As a military man who has given half a century of active service I say in all sincerity that the nuclear arms race has no military purpose. Wars cannot be fought with nuclear weapons. Their existence only adds to our perils because of the illusions which they have generated. There are powerful voices around the world who still give credence to the old Roman precept—if you desire peace prepare for war. This is absolute nuclear nonsense."

"We do not know why Mr. Ghulam Mohammad thought it his duty to anticipate the verdict of history regarding the responsibility of Lord Mountbatten for the tragedy of the Punjab. He is reported to have stated at a Press Conference in London that when the history of the events of this dark chapter comes to be written ‘a part of the blame-would rest on Lord Mountbatten.’ He has made two specific charges. The last British Viceroy was aware of a deep laid conspiracy by the Sikhs and Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh “to throttle Pakistan by eliminating Muslim” and refused to take action. The other charge is that Lord Mountbatten forced partition too quickly. The British Commonwealth Relations Office has repudiated both charges. It has pointed out that it was the then Governor of Punjab who had proved himself to be an avowed partisan of Muslim League, and had looked on impotently while sanguinary riots organized by the Muslim League and the Muslim National Guards took place in North Punjab in March and April 1947. It may be convenient for Mr. Ghulam Mohammed to forget that what happened in August 1947, was a mere continuation of the bloody chain of reaction which was set in motion by the Muslim League at Calcutta in August 1946. In March and April 1947, Sikhs had been brutally massacred and looted and they were abused as cowards because they had not reacted at once with violence. As a matter of fact Lord Mountbatten yielded to his pro-Muslim advisers and stationed the major portion of the Punjab Boundary Force in East Punjab with the result that there was no force to check or control the terrible massacres of Hindus and Sikhs that occurred in Sheikhupura and other places. We should certainly like an impartial investigation into the events of those days and we have no doubt it will be found that while, on the Indian side, it was the spontaneous outburst of a people indignant at what they considered the weakness and the appeasement policy of their leadership, on the Muslim side, the League, the bureaucracy, the police and the army worked like Hitler’s team with the tacit if not open approval of those in charge of the Pakistan Government."

"India had barely become independent, in 1947, when Pakistan invaded Kashmir, which at the time was ruled by a maharajah. The mahara­jah fled, and the people of Kashmir, led by Sheikh Abdullah, asked for Indian help. Lord Mountbatten, who was still governor general, replied that he wouldn’t be able to supply aid to Kashmir unless Pakistan declared war, and he didn’t seem bothered by the fact that the Pakistanis were slaughtering the population. So our leaders decided to sign a document by which they bound themselves to go to war with Pakistan. And Mahatma Gandhi, apostle of nonviolence, signed along with them. Yes, he chose war. He said there was noth­ing else to do. War is inevitable when one must defend somebody or defend oneself."

"Well may we say "", because nothing will save the Governor-General! The Proclamation which you have just heard read by the Governor-General's Official Secretary was countersigned "Malcolm Fraser," who will undoubtedly go down in Australian history from Remembrance Day 1975 as Kerr's cur. They won't silence the outskirts of Parliament House, even if the inside has been silenced for the next few weeks … Maintain your rage and enthusiasm for the campaign for the election now to be held and until polling day."

"We would do absolutely nothing. Now that's a blunt, truthful answer."

"Let me make quite clear that I am for abortion and, in your case sir, we should make it retrospective."

"If I begin my book with a review of the coup, it is only to show that my abiding interests for Australia did not end with it. They shall end only with a long and fortunate life."

"He reveals that he has been a poor politician, a bad judge and a malevolent individual."

"I was profoundly embarrassed by it and did all I could to change it."

"The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race."

"A writer must always try to have a philosophy and he should also have a psychology and a philology and many other things. Without a philosophy and a psychology and all these various other things he is not really worthy of being called a writer. I agree with Kant and Schopenhauer and Plato and Spinoza and that is quite enough to be called a philosophy. But then of course a philosophy is not the same thing as a style."

"From the very nature of progress, all ages must be transitional. If they were not, the world would be at a stand-still and death would speedily ensue. It is one of the tamest of platitudes but it is always introduced by a flourish of trumpets."

"Argument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it."

"The whole duty of man consists in being reasonable and just... I am reasonable because I know the difference between understanding and not understanding and I am just because I have no opinion about things I don’t understand."

"A beauty is not suddenly in a circle. It comes with rapture. A great deal of beauty is rapture. A circle is a necessity. Otherwise you would see no one. We each have our circle."

"It is always a mistake to be plain-spoken."

"No sense in no sense innocence of what of not and what of delight. In no sense innocence in no sense and what in delight and not, in no sense innocence in no sense no sense what, in no sense and delight, and in no sense and delight and not in no sense and delight and not, no sense in no sense innocence and delight."

"Let me recite what history teaches. History teaches."

"One does not get better but different and older and that is always a pleasure."

"Before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded."

"All of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation... You have no respect for anything. You drink yourselves to death."

"When I sleep I sleep and do not dream because it is as well that I am what I seem when I am in my bed and dream."

"Grammar little by little is not a thing. Which may gain. There. Make twenty-five be a woman. The meaning of that does not interest me. It is a complexion that interests that makes ridiculous because that does not make it something else. But it does make them which is again me. Make twenty-five be a woman. I do not lose it. The color is there. Do you see. Dependent entirely upon how one word follows another. Who knows how Howard likes hearing. I can do it so easily it always makes grammar but is it grammar. Forget grammar and think about potatoes. Grammar after all has to do with why they were presented."

"Let me listen to me and not to them May I be very well and happy May I be whichever they can thrive Or just may they not. They do not think not only only But always with prefer And therefore I like what is mine For which not only willing but willingly Because which it matters. They find it one in union. In union there is strength."

"It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business."

"The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting."

"All the world knows how to cry but not all the world knows how to sigh. Sighing is extra."

"I just tell you and though I dont sound like it I've got plenty of sense, there aint any answer, there aint going to be any answer, there never has been any answer, that’s the answer."

"Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense."

"We are always the same age inside."

"Do you know because I tell you so, or do you know, do you know."

"Ladies there is no neutral position for us to assume."

"Communists are people who fancied that they had an unhappy childhood."

"What is the answer?" [ I was silent ] "In that case, what is the question?"

"It bothers a lot of people, but like you said, it's nobody's business, it came from the Judeo-Christian ethos, especially Saint Paul the bastard, but he was complaining about youngsters who were not really that way, they did it for money, everybody suspects us or knows but nobody says anything about it."

"Human nature, human nature acts as it acts when it is identified when there is an identity but it is not human nature that has anything to do with that it is that anybody is there where they are, it is that that has to do with identity, with government and propaganda with history with individualism and with communism but it has nothing nothing to do with the human mind … because the human mind writes what there is and what has identity go to do with that … nothing at all."

"I've been rich and I've been poor. It's better to be rich."

"And identity is funny being yourself is funny as you are never yourself to yourself except as you remember yourself and then of course you do not believe yourself."

"When General Osborne came to see me just after the victory, he asked me what I thought should be done to educate the Germans. I said there is only one thing to be done and that is to teach them disobedience, as long as they are obedient so long sooner or later they will be ordered about by a bad man and there will be trouble. Teach them disobedience, I said, make every German child know that it is its duty at least once a day to do its good deed and not believe something its father or its teacher tells them, confuse their minds, get their minds confused and perhaps then they will be disobedient and the world will be at peace. The obedient peoples go to war, disobedient people like peace, that is the reason that Italy did not really become a good Axis, the people were not obedient enough, the Japs and the Germans are the only really obedient people on earth and see what happens, teach them disobedience, confuse their minds, teach them disobedience, and the world can be peaceful. General Osborne shook his head sadly, you'll never make the heads of an army understand that."

"They were regular in being gay, they learned little things that are things in being gay, they learned many little things that are things in being gay, they were gay every day, they were regular, they were gay, they were gay the same length of time every day, they were gay, they were quite regularly gay."