Favorite historical quotes - Page 3 - History -- Two Plus Two Poker Forums

Sedgwick strode around in the open and was quoted as saying, "What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Although ashamed, his men continued to flinch and he repeated, "I'm ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."

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04-01-2011 , 03:20 PM

#52

Splendour

banned

Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 18,896

I don't know if it's my fav but it's a pretty good quote from Sir Thomas More after he was tried and condemned by Henry VIII on the testimony of false witnesses for daring to oppose Henry's takeover of the church and for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to him.

"I have nothing more to say, my lords, but that just as the blessed Apostle St. Paul, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, was present and consented to the death of St. Stephen, and kept the coats of those that stoned him to death, and yet they are both together holy saints in heaven and shall continue to be friends there forever, so I truly trust, and shall right heartily pray, that though your lordships have now here on earth been my condemning judges, we may hereafter meet right merrily together in heaven and enjoy our everlasting salvations together. And thus I desire Almighty God to preserve and defend the King's majesty, and to send him good counsel."

Just prior to his beheading he remained in good spirits with no air of remorse and assured the crowd from the platform that he died "the king's good servant, but God's first."

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04-01-2011 , 05:21 PM

#53

smrk

old hand

Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 1,575

"I do nobody harm, I say none harm, I think none harm, but wish everybody good. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith, I long not to live."

Ignorantly, I thought this was just from the play/film, but it's originally from one of More's letters.

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04-02-2011 , 01:49 AM

#54

plaaynde

Poker Historian

Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 20,048

We're more popular that Jesus now

-John Lennon

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04-03-2011 , 06:06 PM

#55

longmissedblind

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 3,733

Quote:

All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

Abraham Lincoln, "The Lyceum Speech" given at the Springfield Lyceum in 1838.

The point he was making is that if we are to be undone as a nation it will be at our own hands.

Quote:

If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

I find it important to remember whenever the fevered pitch of our minor differences incites our citizenry to violence that this was predicted by men who lived without in-door plumbing almost 200 years ago.

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04-04-2011 , 11:19 PM

#56

IronedSheik

adept

Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,041

Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat.

Bobby Heenan

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04-07-2011 , 01:52 PM

#57

HumanTarg3t

centurion

Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 179

"One should aim not at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand."
Quintilian

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04-10-2011 , 12:41 AM

#58

plubius

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 10,068

Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.... You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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04-11-2011 , 06:04 AM

#59

etandcoke306

journeyman

Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 353

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrbaseball

"We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately."

Ben Franklin on the decision to officially start the revolution against England.

When you consider this is said literaly. The guy is saying we need a united front or we any going to get hung wow.

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04-11-2011 , 06:28 AM

#60

etandcoke306

journeyman

Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 353

Quote:

Originally Posted by General Tsao

Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William S. Smith, 1787

Best argument for the second amendment I can think of.

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04-11-2011 , 08:46 AM

#61

loK2thabrain

Tiger > Jack

Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 23,203

Quote:

Originally Posted by diebitter

My favourite historical quote is the response to a message sent by the invader Philip of Macedon (Alexander the Great's father) to Sparta. His message was: "You are advised to submit without further delay. If I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your arms, slay your people, and raze your city"

The Spartan response was: "If"

Never heard this before. Solid entry.

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04-11-2011 , 08:50 AM

#62

loK2thabrain

Tiger > Jack

Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 23,203

Quote:

Originally Posted by GermanGuy

All you need to know about democracy by Winston Churchill

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. "

I lol'd

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04-11-2011 , 10:21 AM

#63

HumanTarg3t

centurion

Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 179

^Me2

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04-12-2011 , 11:53 PM

#64

Cup o' Joe

centurion

Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 129

"Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." -Joseph Stalin (1937 interview with H.G. Wells)

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." -Winston Churchill

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04-13-2011 , 10:50 AM

#65

plaaynde

Poker Historian

Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 20,048

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cup o' Joe

"Education is a weapon

This shows what kind of bastard he was.

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04-16-2011 , 01:40 AM

#66

tvent37

old hand

Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 1,822

Quote:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.This world in arms in not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

Especially compelling since Eisenhower was a 5 star general.

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04-16-2011 , 01:54 PM

#67

Jasonfrang

stranger

Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 11

With your shield, or on it.

Spartan mothers and wives, telling their men to return victorious or or carried on their shields dead.

and of course,

μολὼν λαβέ!
Molon lavé!
"Come take them!"
King Leonidas of Sparta, in response to King Xerxes of Persia's demand that the Greek army lay down their arms before the Battle of Thermopylae.

Last edited by Jasonfrang; 04-16-2011 at 02:04 PM.

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04-16-2011 , 04:16 PM

#68

OldYoda

Mind Trick

Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 859

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”

-A. Lincoln

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04-16-2011 , 06:25 PM

#69

Case Closed

self-banned

Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 19,112

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam the Ant

In the Arena

by

Teddy Roosevelt

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

I came to post this quote. Teddy is the GOAT.

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04-16-2011 , 10:07 PM

#70

BigPoppa

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 22,216

Arbeit Macht Frei
("Work Will Make You Free")

Was on the gates at Auschwitz, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen.

Would not use the word "favorite" as it gives me the shivers when I think of it.

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04-16-2011 , 10:11 PM

#71

BigPoppa

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 22,216

Closer to favorite:

"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old."

-Winston Churchill (4th June 1940)

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04-16-2011 , 10:31 PM

#72

omnimirage

temp-banned

Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 2,280

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigPoppa

Arbeit Macht Frei
("Work Will Make You Free")

Was on the gates at Auschwitz, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen.

Would not use the word "favorite" as it gives me the shivers when I think of it.

sounds like propaganda

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04-17-2011 , 12:22 AM

#73

plaaynde

Poker Historian

Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 20,048

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigPoppa

Closer to favorite:

"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, USA, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old."

-Winston Churchill (4th June 1940)

FYP.

The original quote is better

. He knew what he wanted, and used the language suited for the time.

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04-17-2011 , 07:22 AM

#74

Le Boeuf

banned

Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 887

Hugo Grotius-
"A man cannot govern a nation if he cannot govern a city; he cannot govern a city if he cannot govern a family; he cannot govern a family unless he can govern himself; and he cannot govern himself unless his passions are subject to reason"