All Quotes

"On n'est pas un petit peuple, on est peut-être quelque chose comme un grand peuple."

"He (Clemenceau) broke off to confide in me sadly that General Pétain was contemplating the retreat of the French Army to the south while the British Army retired towards the north. Pétain, added Clemenceau, had given orders on this basis. Foch confirmed this last piece of information and told me of the order to retreat which Pétain had given. "The President of the Council (Clemenceau)," added Foch, "has only just lately begun to take part in military matters; he had accepted Pétain's point of view, but I declined to take any responsibility for it. I sent M. Clemenceau a note to tell him my views. Common sense indicates that when the enemy wishes to begin making a hole, you do not make it wider. You close it, or you try to close it. We have only got to try and to have the will; the rest will be easy. You stick to your ground, you defend it foot by foot. We did that at Ypres, we did it at Verdun." And Foch stuck to his point with the same energy before Clemenceau, the senator and the deputy."

"Now he took the music of like Mandrill, like "Fencewalk", certain disco records that had funky percussion breaks like The Incredible Bongo Band when they came out with "Apache" and he just kept that beat going. It might be that certain part of the record that everybody waits for ]]— they just let their inner self go and get wild. The next thing you know the singer comes back in and you'd be mad."

"Herc really slipped up. With the monstrous power he had he couldn't mix too well. He was playing little breaks but it would sound so sloppy. I noticed that the mixer he was using was a GLI 3800. It was a very popular mixer at that time. It's a scarcity today but it's still one of the best mixers GLI ever made. At the time he wasn't using no queueing. In other words, the hole was there for a headphone to go in but I remember he never had headphones over his ears. All of a sudden, Herc had headphones but I guess he was so used to dropping the needle down by eyesight and trying to mix it that from the audio part of it he couldn't get into it too well."

"[P]ain is a marvelous purifier. . . It is not necessary to beat the child into submission; a little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely."

"Some strong-willed children absolutely demand to be spanked, and their wishes should be granted. . . [T]wo or three stinging strokes on the legs or buttocks with a switch are usually sufficient to emphasize the point, 'You must obey me.'"

"KING: You're an outspoken supporter of Israel. You and Bill Bennett co-authored an op-ed piece on the subject, responding to a letter from a group of prominent Evangelical Christians who urged George W. Bush to employ an even handed policy toward Israel and Palestine. You don't want an even handed policy?"

"DOBSON: Well, I do. It depends on what you mean by that. I feel very strongly about Israel. You know it is surrounded by its enemies. And it exists primarily because God has willed it to exist, I think, according to scripture, but also, because America has stood with Israel. If we ever abandon it, it's gone. There are six million Jews in Israel. There are 400 million Muslims around them that hate them and want many of them -- hate them and want to drive them into the sea. And that is a major concern to me. It's the only democracy in the Middle East. Why wouldn't we support them?"

"KING: And the Palestinian people are the only people without a state..."

"DOBSON: Yes."

"KING: … of any kind. Should they have a state? Do you agree with the president there? There should be a Palestinian state?"

"KING: Franklin Graham called Islam a very wicked and evil religion. More recently, he said that Muslim leaders haven't done enough to show their sorrow over 9/11. Do you agree with that?"

"DOBSON: Well, I certainly agree that many factions within Islam are very, very violent. I mean, how can we deny that? The war against the west and against Israel certainly didn't start with 9/11. For us, it began really in 1979 when the Iranians, you know, invaded the embassy there. And from that point on, they've been doing things like this, so there's a lot of violence within the Islamic faith."

"KING: But you don't think the faith is violent? You don't think American Muslims are, by nature, violent, or Muslims are by nature violent or do you?"

"DOBSON: I think some Muslims are, but certainly..."

"KING: Well, some Christians are."

"DOBSON: Yes, but that..."

"KING: There's a lot of killing in the name of Christ in history."

"DOBSON: Yes, there has been down through the years, but I don't think that's the predominant factor. I mean, if you look at the teachings of Christ, the centerpiece is love. That's been the essence of what He has thought."

"Let the chessboard supercede the card table, and a great improvement will be visible in the morals of the community."

"I am more strongly confirmed than ever in the belief that the time devoted to chess is literally frittered away. It is, to be sure, a most exhilarating sport, but it is only a sport; and it is not to be wondered at that such as have been passionately addicted to the charming pastime should one day ask themselves whether sober reason does not advise its utter dereliction."

"There is no good in chess, and he disapproved of it... I heard him disapprove of playing it and other worthless games."

"It's a useful mental exercise. Through the years, many thinkers have been fascinated by it. But I don't enjoy playing... Because it was a game that was born during a brutal age when life counted for little. Everyone believed that some people were worth more than others. Kings. Pawns. I don't think that anyone is worth more than anyone else... Chess is just a game. Real people are not pieces. You can't assign more value to some of them and not others. Not to me. Not to anyone. People are not a thing that you can sacrifice. The lesson is, anyone who looks on to the world as if it is a game of chess, deserves to lose.""

"Chess is a game by its form, an art by its content and a science by the difficulty of gaining mastery in it. Chess can convey as much happiness as a good book or work of music can. However, it is necessary to learn to play well and only afterwards will one experience real delight."

"I'm absolutely convinced that in chess – although it remains a game – there is nothing accidental."

"Some consider that when I play I am excessively cautious, but it seems to me that the question may be a different one. I try to avoid chance. Those who rely on chance should play cards or roulette. Chess is something quite different."

"They say my chess games should be more interesting. I could be more interesting — and also lose."

"I don’t mind smoking interfering with my play. Some folks say it takes the sharp edge from one’s intellect, and spoils one’s memory. I haven’t found it so. I’ve smoked since I was 14, and I can play better when I have a cigar in my mouth – only a cigar, never anything else. When I play a lot of games at the same time, I must be keyed up to it, as it were. I practise what you call self-hypnotism. It is largely will-power. You see, it’s just this way. When it becomes my turn to make a move at one of the chess boards, my mental powers are concentrated severely on the one move. All the other chess boards, the checkers and whist are obliterated from my mind. It is as though I had never started playing those games at all. I seem to remember nothing of them. I come to a decision, the move is made, and I turn again to the cards in my hand. Quick as lightning the game of chess vanishes from my mind. Now it is nothing but whist with me. I seem never to have had a thought of anything but the game of cards. I play one. Then I move one of the checkers. These transitions of mind take place so quickly that I seem to be playing chess, checkers and whist all at once, and to be thinking of all the games at once. But it is as I explained. The only thing I really need for the ordeal is my cigar."

"The Germans may take Paris, but that will not prevent me from going on with the war. We will fight on the Loire, we will fight on the Garronne, we will fight even in the Pyrenees. And if at last we are driven off the Pyrenees, we will continue the war at sea."

"[Clemenceau] said that the Rhine was a natural boundary of Gaul and Germany and that it ought to be made the German boundary now, the territory between the Rhine and the French frontier being made into an Independent State whose neutrality should be guaranteed by the great powers."

"Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyse. A chess-player, for example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I [...] assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an instant, an oversight is committed, resulting in injury or defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involute, the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers."

"The game of chess is like a sword fight. You must think first, before you move."

"Chess and Islam were born about the same time — chess out of a regional need to understand complex new ideas, and Islam out of the Arabs' desperate need for discipline, intelligence, and meaningful community. [...] In Persia the Muslims encountered chatrang, the bloodless new war game which relied solely on players' intellect. Chess and Islam complemented each other well: a new game of war, wits and self-control serving a spirited new religious and social movement organized around the same values."

"To play chess, the ulema declare, is detestable according to Imam Abu Hanifa, and a man habituated to it is not qualified to be imam... And how could they rule otherwise? Had the Prophet not said, ‘He who plays chess is like one who dyes his hand with the flesh and blood of swine?’..."

"My life was in crisis. All my values were becoming meaningless. I was discovering that my chosen profession was empty, foolish, as useless as—as playing chess."

"‘Anderssen once said to me: “To win a tournament, a competitor must in the first place play well, but he should also have a good amount of luck.” I quite agree with that, but it naturally follows that there must be also ill luck in tournaments, of which many instances could be cited, notably that of Winawer, who, after having tied for first and second prizes in Vienna, and just a few weeks before he came out chief victor in Nuremberg, did not win in London a single prize out of eight (to include the special one for the best score against the prize-holders). All this would tend to show that, at least, a single tournament, especially one consisting of one round only, cannot be regarded as a test.’"

"Shall we play Bezique? Or Nightjack? I’ve cards, or chess if you prefer, but I’ve always found chess to be a bit too much like real life to provide much enjoyment as a game."

"Ludimus effigiem belli, simulataque veris Praelia, buxo acies fictas, et ludicra regna, Ut gemini inter se reges albusque, nigerque Pro laude oppositi certent bicoloribus armis."

"The enemy is at the gates of the city. The day is perhaps not far off when our breasts will be the last defence for our country. We are the children of the Revolution. Let us take inspiration from our fathers of 1792, and, like them, we will conquer."

"Bismarck is a dangerous enemy, but even more dangerous perhaps as a friend: he showed us Tunis, placing us in conflict with England, and is now negotiating with us over the Congo."

"Whether we like it or not, whether it pleases us or shocks us, the French Revolution is a bloc ... a bloc from which nothing can be separated, because historical truth does not permit it. ... the Revolution is not finished, it is still continuing, we are actors in it, the same men are still in conflict with the same enemies. The struggle will go on, until the final day of victory, and until that day we will not allow you to throw mud at the Revolution."

"It was I who gave the title "J'accuse" to Zola's letter."

"No, my friend, Germany will not declare war on us [at this moment]. But in my opinion the European situation is such that a great armed conflict is inevitable at some time which I cannot foresee, and our duty is to prepare for the worst."

"I think war is inevitable. We must do nothing to provoke it, but we must be ready for it; helped by Russia and England, doubtless by Spain also and perhaps by Italy as well, we may be able to win. In any case it will be a life and death affair: if we are beaten we will be crushed."

"In the distance huge trees were still blazing, around us was a waste of ashes and of half-consumed boughs, and the falling rain seemed only to quicken the dying conflagration. In some of the great green boles were fearful gaping wounds through which the sap was oozing, while some tall trees still stretched to heaven their triumphant crown of foliage above a trunk all charred that would never sprout again. The Brazilians contemplate spectacles such as this with a wholly indifferent eye, and, indeed, even with satisfaction, for they see in the ruin only a promise of future harvests. To me the scene possessed only the horror of a slaughter-house."

"The difficulty between us and Germany is this: that Germany believes that the logic of her victory means domination, while we do not believe that the logic of our defeat is serfdom [vassalité]."

"Mistakes have been made; do not think of them except to rectify them. Alas, there have also been crimes, crimes against France which call for a prompt punishment. We promise you, we promise the country, that justice will be done according to the law. ... Weakness would be complicity. We will avoid weakness, as we will avoid violence. All the guilty before courts-martial. The soldier in the court-room, united with the soldier in battle. No more pacifist campaigns, no more German intrigues. Neither treason, nor semi-treason: the war. Nothing but the war. Our armies will not be caught between fire from two sides. Justice will be done. The country will know that it is defended."

"[France] finds herself at this time in a particularly difficult situation. ... It is the country which is nearest to Germany. America is distant; it has taken her a long time to get here. And during that time we have been put to it, we have suffered...our cities and our towns have been devastated. Everyone says, rightly, that 'it must not happen again'. I think so too. But how? There was an old system, which seems to be condemned today, and to which I do not fear to say that I remain a faithful adherent at this time. ... This system—solid frontiers...and balance of power—today seems to be condemned by certain very high authorities."

"I should lie if I said that I was at once in agreement with him [President Wilson] on all the points. America is far distant from the frontiers of Germany, as I remarked a little while ago. I have, perhaps, preoccupations which I would not say are foreign to him, but which do not touch him so closely as they touch the man who has seen his country devastated during four years by an enemy who was within several days of Paris."

"War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory."