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VENICE --- VERBOSE
VERIFY --- VERMONT --- VICE
VICE-PRESIDENT --- VICTIMS --- VICTORY

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VENICE

see: "PLACES" for related links


STREETS FLOODED. PLEASE ADVISE.
--Robert Benchley (1889—1945)
American humorist and newspaper columnist.
(Telegraphed message on arriving in Venice.)
Quoted in Robert E. Drennan (ed.) _The Algonquin Wits_[1968].

As we sailed further on, we found before our eyes
the famous, great, wealthy and noble city of Venice,
the mistress of the Mediterranean, standing in
wondrous fashion in the midst of the waters with
lofty towers, great churches, splendid houses and
palaces. We were astonished to see such weighty and
such tall structures with their foundations in the
water. Presently we sailed in to the city, and went
along the Grand Canal as far as the Rialto where on
each side of us we saw buildings of wonderful height
and beauty.
--Felix Fabri (c. 1441—1502)
Dominican theologian.
_The Wanderings of B. Felix Fabri_ [1480-1483; 1892 trans.],
in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.}
_History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 300.

-

The spring came in Venice.

There were flowers all the day long everywhere, and music all the
night; the swallows and the doves were happy in the cloudless air;
the sweet sea wind only blew softly enough to lift the hair of the
women standing on the wet marble stairs to meet the boats of fish
and of fruit.

It was the city of Desdemona, of Stradella, of Giorgione, of
Consuelo. Signa lived in it as in a dream; this silence enfolded
him like sleep — sleep filled with the stir of birds' wings, the
sound of waves, the sigh of the wind in the casements full of
lilies, the murmurs of amorous whispers.

"Am I awake?" he would say to himself in this wonderful trance of
slumberous delight, when all the air was full of his own melodies,
and all the people's eyes turned after him.

--Ouida [Maria Louise de la Ramιe] (1839—1908)
English novelist.
_Signa_

-

You Venetians, it is certain, are very wrong to
disturb the peace of other states rather than to rest
content with the most splendid state of Italy, which
you already possess. If you knew how you are
universally hated, your hair would stand on end ...
do you believe that these powers in Italy, now in
league together, are truly friends among themselves?
Of course they are not, it is only necessity, and the
fear which they feel of you and your power, that has
bound them in this way ... You are alone, with all
the world against you, not only in Italy but beyond
the Alps too. Know then that your enemies do not
sleep. Take good counsel, for, by God, you need
Galeazzo Sforza.
--Galeazzo Sforza (1444—1476)
Duke of Milan.
To Giovanni Gonnella, secretary of the Venetian republic, in M.J.
Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 299.

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VERBOSE

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see: "COMMUNICATION" for related links


This report, by its very length, defends itself
against the risk of being read.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and
Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955].

[Of Gladstone:]
A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804—1881)
British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 1874—1880].
Speech at Knightsbridge [28 July 1878].

I have always revered not crude verbosity but holy simplicity.
--Saint Jerome (c.340—420?)
Translator of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin.
Letter 57.

As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in
a few words, so it is that of little minds to use many
words to say nothing.
--Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.
_Reflections; or, Sentences and Moral Maxims_ [1678]



VERIFY

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see: "FACTS"
see: "TRUST"


I think I could sum up my own position on this with the
recitation of a very brief Russian proverb: 'Doveryai no
Proveryai.' It means trust but verify.
--Ronald Reagan (1911—2004)
American President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor.
Quoted in "N.Y. Times" [4 December 1987].

You will find it a very good practice always to
verify your references, sir.
--Martin Joseph Routh (1755—1854)
English classicist.
As quoted in J. W. Burgon's
_Memoir of Dr. Routh, Quarterly Review_ [July 1878].



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VERMONT

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see: "PLACES" for related links


Vermont is a country unto itself. Indeed for fourteen
years after the declaration of independence, the
State refused to join the Union and remained an
independent republic.
--Pearl S. Buck (1892—1973)
American author noted for her novels of life in China;
winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature.
_Pearl Buck's America_ [1971]

[Ethan Allen] wrote to Congress to make it
quite clear that he and his men were fighting
for the independence of Vermont, as a
separate nation. If he failed, he said, "I will
retire into the desolate caverns of the
mountains to wage war with human nature
at large." He didn't. Instead, he schemed
with the British to make Vermont a British
province. He was lucky not to be tried for
treason. As it was, he ended up having to
escape from his beloved state to avoid
imprisonment — a little matter of big debts
— and left behind a brave name, a highly
baised history of Vermont, and a fat
pamphlet: A Denunciation of the Prophet
Moses and the State of New York.
--Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (1908—2004)
British-born American broadcater and journalist.
_America_ [1973]

-

One New Year's Eve I was at a party in a farmhouse
on a hill above a small Vermont village. By midnight
the snow had stopped and the moon had come out.
It was one degree below zero.

Almost everyone at the party had gone outside to
look at the new snow. All around was a silence so
total that the world seemed not merely cleansed but
newly created. Nowhere was there the sound of a car
in that hushed world, or so much as a dog barking.
The clear moonlight revealed no mess either. Men
live in Vermont: no doubt there were beer cans and
even abandoned refrigerators within easy walking
distance. They were nullified by the snow.

To be outdoors on such a night is to experience
that awe which modern man is said to have lost
the capacity for, but which he has really just
ceased to look for in the right places.

--Noel Perrin
_Vermont: In All Weathers_

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VICE

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see: "GAMBLING"
see: "HABITS"
see: "CRIME & PUNISHMENT" for other related links
see: "IMMORALITY" for other related links


You will become as small as your controlling desire;
as great as your dominant aspiration.
--James Lane Allen (1849—1925)
American novelist and short story writer.

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You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the
things that make you want to live to be a hundred.
--Woody Allen [Allen Stewart Konigsberg] (b. 1935)
American actor, screenwriter, and director.
Dialogue in the 1978 movie _Interiors_.


There are two types of people in this world: good and
bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy
the waking hours much more.
--Woody Allen [Allen Stewart Konigsberg] (1935— )
American actor, screenwriter, and director.

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Times change. The vices of your age are stylish today.
--Aristophanes (c. 450—c. 388 BC)
Greek comic dramatist.
_The Clouds_ [c. 423 B.C.]

Prosperity doth best discover vice, but
adversity doth best discover virtue.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.
_Essays_ [1625] "Of Adversity"

I'm as pure as the driven slush.
--Tallulah Bankhead (1903—1968)
American actress.
Quoted in "Saturday Evening Post" [12 April 1947].

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
--William Blake (1757—1827)
English poet.
_The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_ [1790—1793] "Proverbs of Hell"

When we envy another, we make their virtue our vice.
--Nicolas Boileau-Desprιaux (1636—1711)
French critic and poet.
Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 132 [1886].

"Is it true that you smoke eight to ten cigars a day?"
"That's true."
"Is it true that you drink five martinis a day?"
"That's true."
"Is it true that you still surround yourself with beautiful
young women?"
"That's true."
"What does your doctor say about all of this?"
"My doctor is dead."
--attributed to George Burns [Nathan Birnbaum] (1896—1996)
American comedian.

I'll turn over a new leaf.
--Miguel de Cervantes (1547—1616)
Spanish novelist.
_Don Quixote de la Mancha_, pt. II, bk. iii, ch. xiii [1615]

Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight;
and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask
of some virtue.
--Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (1694—1773)
British writer and politician.
Letter to his son [22 February 1748].

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The excesses of our youth, are drafts upon our old age,
payable with interest, about thirty years after date.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.
_Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words_, LXXVI [1820]


He that is good will infallibly become better, and he that is bad
will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue, and time are
three things that never stand still.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.
_Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words_, CCCCLVII [1821 ed.]

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We are far more liable to catch the vices
than the virtues of our associates.
--Denis Diderot (1713—1784)
French writer and philosopher.
Attributed in Julia B. Hoitt
_Excellent Quotations For Home and School_, p. 38 [1890].

Life [...] seems to be divided into two periods: in
the first we indulge, in the second we preach.
--Will Durant (1885—1981)
American philosopher and writer.
_The Mansions of Philosophy_ [1929]

What a benefit would the American government, not yet relieved of its extreme
need, render to itself, and to every city, village and hamlet in the States, if it
would tax whiskey and rum almost to the point of prohibition! Was it Bonaparte
who said that he found vices very good patriots? "He got five millions from the
love of brandy, and he should be glad to know which of the virtues would pay
him as much." Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry
the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they
give and such harm as they do.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
_Society and Solitude_ "Civilization" [1870]

Great vices are the proper objects of our detestation, smaller
faults of our pity, but affectation appears to me the only true
source of the Ridiculous.
--Henry Fielding (1707—1754)
English novelist and dramatist.
_The Adventures of Joseph Andrews_ [1742] "Author's Preface"

My main problem is reconciling my gross habits with my net income.
--Errol Flynn (1909—1959)
Tasmanian-born motion-picture actor.
Quoted in "N.Y. Times" [6 March 1955].

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Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard's Almanack_ [December 1738]


Be at war with your vices, at peace with your
neighbors, and let every new year find you a
better person.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
Attributed in _Memphis Medical Monthly_, vol. XXI [March 1901].


Vice knows she's ugly, so puts on her mask.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard's Almanack_ [pub. by U.S.C. Pub. Co., Watetrloo, Iowa, 1914].

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If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking, and loving,
you don't actually live longer; it just seems longer.
--Clement Freud (1924—2009)
German-born English broadcaster and politician.
Quoted in "Observer" (London) [27 December 1964].

Some faults are so closely allied to qualities that
it is difficult to weed out the vice without eradicating
the virtue.
--attributed to Oliver Goldsmith (1728—1774)
Anglo-Irish writer, poet, and dramatist.

If they chased every man or woman out of this town who
has shacked up with somebody else, or got drunk, there'd
be no government.
--Barry Goldwater (1909—1998)
American conservative politician.
Quoted in "Time" (mag) [13 March 1989].

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.
--Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
French poet, dramatist, and novelist.
In Lorenzo O'Rourke (tr.)
_Victor Hugo's Intellectual Autobiography_ [1907].

If he does really think that there is no distinction between
virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses, let
us count our spoons.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
In James Boswell _The Life of Samuel Johnson_ [1791] "14 July 1763"

^

James Joyce (1882—1941)
Irish novelist.

In his impoverished youth, Joyce once applied
for a job in a bank. 'Do you smoke?' asked the
bank manager.

'No,' replied his would-be employee.

'Do you drink?'

'No.'

'Do you go with girls?'

'No.'

The manager was unimpressed with this display
of virtue. 'Away with you!' he cried. 'You'd probably
rob the bank.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

The same vices that are gross and insupportable
in others we do not notice in ourselves.
--attributed to Jean de La Bruyθre (1645—1696)
French essayist and moralist.

When our vices quit us, we flatter ourselves with
the belief that it is we who quit them.
--Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.
_Reflections; or, Sentences and Moral Maxims_ [1678]

One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that
he can't give up a thing without wanting everyone else
to give it up. That isn't the Christian way.
--C.S. [Clive Staples] Lewis (1898—1963)
British scholar and novelist.
_Christian Behavior_ [1944]

It has been my experience that folks who
have no vices have very few virtues.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
Attributed in "Good Literature" [28 October 1882].

I dare say you need not be told how sensual
vice abounds in rural districts. Here it is flagrant
beyond anything I ever could have looked for:
and here while every justice of the peace is
filled with disgust and every clergyman with
(almost) despair at the drunkenness, quarrelling
and extreme licentiousness with women — here
is dear good old [William] Wordsworth for ever
talking of rural innocence and deprecating any
intercourse with towns, lest the purity of his
neighbours should be corrupted.
--Harriet Martineau writing from the Lake District
in 1846 to Elizabeth Barrett.
In _History in Quotations_ M.J. Cohan and John Major [2004].

His face was filled with broken commandments.
--John Masefield (1878—1967)
English novelist, poet, and playwright.
Quoted in H. V. Prochnow
_New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom_, p. 86 [1958].

Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking
vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing
vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot,
like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare
moments; it is a whole-time job.
--W. Somerset Maugham (1874—1965)
English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer.
_Cakes and Ale_ [1930]

The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins
to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum
of his villainy.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.
Attributed in Evan Esar _20,000 Quips & Quotes_ [1995].

Vices are often hid under the name of virtues, and the practice of them
followed by the worst consequences. I have seen ladies indulge their
own ill-humor by being very rude and impertinent, and think they
deserve approbation by saying, 'I love to speak the truth.'
--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu [nιe Pierrepont] (1689—1762)
English aristocrat and writer.
Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou
_Notable Thoughts About Women_, p. 381 [1882].

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There is no man so good that if he submitted all his actions
and thoughts to the scrutiny of the laws, he would not
deserve hanging ten times in his life.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.
_Essais_ (Essays) [94 chapters written 1571—1580 & published 1580;
the last 13 chapters were written 1585—1587 & published 1588.]
Bk. 3, ch. 9 [1580]


Lying is a hateful and accursed vice. We have no other tie upon
one another, but our word. If we did but discover the horror and
consequence of it, we should pursue it with fire and sword, and
more justly than other crimes.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.
Attributed in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 322 [1908 ed.].

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Don't smoke too much, drink too much, eat
too much or work too much. We're all on the
road to the grave — but there's no reason to
be in the passing lane.
--Robert Orben (b. 1927)
American magician and comedy writer.
Quoted in William Safire & Leonard Safir
_Words of Wisdom: More Good Advice_ , p. 80 [1989].

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
--Alexander Pope (1688—1744)
English poet.
_Essay on Man_ [1733], epistle II, l. 217

Vices that are familiar we pardon, and
only new ones do we reprehend.
--Publilius Syrus (85—43 B.C.)
Latin writer of mimes who was originally a slave.

In our ideals we unwittingly reveal our vices.
--Jean Rostand (1894—1977)
French biologist and philosopher.
Attributed in Auriel Douglas
_Webster's New World Best Book of Aphorisms_ [1989].

The sight of a drunkard is a better sermon against that vice
than the best that was ever preached on that subject.
--George Savile [Lord Halifax] (1633—1695)
English politician and essayist.
_The Lady's New Year's Gift: or Advice to a Daughter_ [1688]

Of all the vices drinking is the most
incompatible with greatness.
--Sir Walter Scott (1771—1832)
Scottish novelist and poet.
Quoted in "Manford's Magazine" Vol XXXIV [1890]

What once were vices, are now the manners of the day.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
_Epistulae ad Lucilium_, xxxix, as quoted in William S. Walsh
_The International Encyclopedia of Prose and Poetical Quotations_ [1908].

Those men who destroy a healthful constitution of body
by intemperance and an irregular life do as manifestly
kill themselves as those who hang, or poison, or drown
themselves.
--Thomas Sherlock (1678—1761)
English bishop of the Church of England.
Attributed in James Ford _The Acts of the Apostles ..._ [1856]

If idleness does not produce vice or malevolence,
it commonly produces melancholy.
--Sydney Smith (1771—1845)
English clergyman and essayist.
Attributed in _The Review of Education_ [May 1902].

The problem with people who have no vices is that
generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have
some pretty annoying virtues.
--attributed to Elizabeth Taylor (b. 1932)
American motion-picture actress.

You may keep your beauty and your health, unless you
destroy them yourself, or discourage them to stay with
you, by using them ill.
--Sir William Temple (1628—1699)
English statesman and diplomat.
Quoted in _Encyclopaedia Perthensis_ [2nd ed., 1816]

Every one is a moon, and has a dark
side which he never shows to anybody.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_Following the Equator_ [1897],
ch. 66 epigraph: "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar"

Never support two weaknesses at the same time. It's
your combination sinners — your lecherous liars and
your miserly drunkards — who dishonor the vices and
bring them into bad repute.
--Thornton Wilder (1897—1975)
American novelist and dramatist.
_The Matchmaker_, act 3 [1954]

All the things I really like to do are either
immoral, illegal, or fattening.
--Alexander Woollcott (1887—1943)
American dramatic and literary critic.
Quoted in "Reader's Digest" [December 1933].

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
--Henny Youngman (1906—1998)
English-born American stand-up comedian.
Quoted in "Rocky Mountain News" [15 July 1994].

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It may be that your sole purpose in life is
simply to serve as a warning to others.
--anon.

Virtues and vices are of a strange nature,
for the more we have, the fewer we think
we have.
--anon.

-----

dissolute [DIS-uh-loot], adjective:
Loose in morals and conduct; marked by indulgence in
sensual pleasures or vices.
Ex.: I had heard talk that Tosca, for all the dissolute life
she led, was a pious person who frequented churches with
scrupulous regularity, yet in this conduct I had always
suspected a pose, an affectation.
--Paola Capriolo,
_Floria Tosca_, (Translated by Liz Heron)



VICE-PRESIDENT

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see: "POLITICS" for related links


My country has in its Wisdom contrived for me the
most insignificant Office [the vice-presidency] that
ever the invention of Man contrived or his Imagination
conceived.
--John Adams (1735—1826)
First VP and second President of the United States.
In a letter to Abigail Adams [19 December 1793].

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A spare tire on the automobile of government.
--John Nance Garner (1868—1967)
American Democratic politician.
Characterizing the office of Vice President [19 June 1934].


The Vice Presidency isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss.
--John Nance Garner (1868—1967)
American Democratic politician.
Quoted in Alfred Steinberg _Sam Rayburn: A Biography_ [1975].

-

-

The Vice President of the United States is like a man
in a cataleptic state: he cannot speak; he cannot move;
he suffers no pain; and yet he is perfectly concious of
everthing that is going on about him.
--attributed to Thomas R. Marshall (1854—1925)
American politician and 28th vice-president
of the United States [1913—1921].


There were once two brothers. One ran away to sea.
The other was elected Vice President and neither
was heard of again.
--Thomas R. Marshall (1854—1925)
American politician and 28th vice-president
of the United States [1913—1921].
Quoted in Dick Gregory _Dick Gregory's Political Primer_ [1972].

-

Abraham Lincoln's first vice president, Hannibal
Hamlin, felt so unneeded and unwanted that he
went home to Maine and joined the Coast Guard.
And Thomas Jefferson, who followed John Adams
to the vice presidency and then the presidency,
initially saw the No. 2 job as a vacation from
a strenuous life. 'A more tranquil and unoffending
station could not have been found for me,' he
wrote.
--Siobhan McDonough, A.P. Writer

One word sums up probably the responsibility
of any vice-president, and that one word is 'to
be prepared.'
--Dan Quayle (b. 1947)
Vice-President of the United States [1989-93].
Quoted in "Esquire" [1992].

-

The man with the best job in the country is the
Vice-President. All he has to do is get up every
morning and say "How's the President?"
--Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (1879—1935)
American humorist and actor.


Will you please tell us what you do with all the
Vice Presidents a bank has? I guess that's to
get you more discouraged before you can see
the President. Why, the United States is the
biggest Business institution in the world and
they only have one Vice President and nobody
has ever found anything for him to do.
--Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (1879—1935)
American humorist and actor.
In a speech to the International Bankers Association [1922].

-

[T]he Vice President, as Mr. Dawes once said, has
only two duties: one is to preside over the Senate,
and the other one is to inquire about the President's
health.
--Harry S. Truman (1884—1972)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1945—1953].
Remarks to the Women's Patriotic Conference
on National Defense [26 January 1950].

I do not propose to be buried
until I am really dead.
--Daniel Webster (1782—1852)
American orator and politician.
Rejecting the offer of the Whig vice-presidential nomination in 1848.
In Marcus Cunliffe _The American Heritage History of the Presidency_ [1968].



VICTIMS

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see: "BLAME"
see: "CRIME & PUNISHMENT" for other related links


The surest way of making a dupe is to
let your victim suppose you are his.
--Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803—1873)
British novelist and politician.
Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_, p. 118 [10th ed. 1884].

A victim act is a form of passive agression. It seeks
to achieve gratification not by honest work or a
contribution made out of one's experience or insight
or love, but by the manipulation of others through
silent (and not-so-silent) threat. The victim compels
others to come to his rescue or to behave as he wishes
by holding them hostage to the prospect of his own
futher illness/meltdown/mental dissolution, or simply
by threatening to make their lives so miserable that
they do what he wants. Casting yourself as a victim
is the antithesis of doing your work. Don't do it. If
you're doing it, stop.
--Steven Pressfield
_The War of Art_

Victimization status is the modern promised land of
absolution from personal responsibility.
--Dr. Laura Schlessinger (1947— )
American radio host.




VICTORY

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.

see: "COMPETITION"
see: "WAR & PEACE" for other related links


You are permitted, in time of great danger, to walk
with the devil until you have crossed the bridge.
--Bulgarian Proverb

[After conquering Pharnaces at Zela:]
Veni, vidi, vici! (I came, I saw, I conquered!)
--Gaius Julius Caesar (100 B.C.—44 B.C.)
Roman military and political leader.
Quoted in Plutarch _Life of Caesar_, and
Suetonius _Lives of the Twelve Caesars_.

-

No compromise with the main purpose, no peace
till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955].
Speech in London [1917].


I would say to the House, as I said to those who have
joined this Government: "I have nothing to offer but
blood, toil, tears and sweat. "... You ask, what is
our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory,
victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror,
victory, however long and hard the road may be;
for without victory, there is no survival.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and
Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955].
--Speech in House of Commons [13 May 1940].


The problems of victory are more agreeable than the
problems of defeat, but they are no less difficult.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955].
Speech in House of Commons [11 November 1942], as quoted in
Robert Andrews _The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations_ [1993].


In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In
victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and
Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955].
_The Second World War_, vol. I [1948]

-

Victory has a hundred fathers, but no one wants to recognize defeat as his own.
--Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903—1944)
Italian politician.
Diary [9 September 1942].

Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning;
but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's
sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many
victories worse than a defeat.
--George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] (1819—1880)
English novelist.
_Scenes of Clerical Life_ [1857] (Published anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine.)

God is always with the strongest battalions.
--Frederick II [Frederick the Great] (1712—1786)
King of Prussia [1740—1786].
Letter to Duchess Louise Dorothea von Gotha [8 May 1760].

Victory is always possible for the person
who refuses to stop fighting.
--Napoleon Hill (1883—1970)
American journalist, lawyer, and author of self-help books.

The troops returning home are worried. 'We've lost the peace,'
men tell you. 'We can't make it stick.' ... Friend and foe alike,
look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly they
are disappointed in you as an American. ... Never has American
prestige in Europe been lower....Instead of coming in with a bold
plan of relief and reconstruction we came in full of evasions and
apologies.... A great many Europeans feel that the cure has
been worse than the disease. The taste of victory had gone
sour in the mouth of every thoughtful American I met.
--Life Magazine [7 January 1946]

Part of the happiness of life consists not
in fighting battles but in avoiding them.
A masterly retreat is in itself a victory.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
In Samuel Longfellow (ed.) _Final Memorials of Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow_, ch. XIX "Table-Talk" [1887].

Philippides [or Pheidippides] ... brought the news
of the victory from Marathon and addressed the
magistrates in session when they were anxious to
know how the battle had ended; 'Rejoice, we've
won,' he said and then he died breathing his last
breath with those words.
--Lucian (c. 120—c. 180)
Greek rhetorician, pamphleteer, and satirist.
_A Slip of Tongue in Greeting_,
in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004].

See the conquering hero comes!
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!
--Thomas Morell (1703—1784)
English librettist.
"Judas Maccabeus" [1747]

No victor believes in chance.
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844—1900)
German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture.
_The Gay Science_ (Die frφhliche Wissenschaft), bk. 3 [1882]

It's easy to do anything in victory. It's
in defeat that a man reveals himself.
--Floyd Patterson (1935—2006)
American heavyweight boxer.
Quoted in Gay Talese _Fame and Obscurity: Portraits [1970].

We have met the enemy and they are ours...
--Oliver Hazard Perry (1785—1819)
American naval officer.
Announcing American victory over the British at the
naval battle of Lake Erie [10 September 1813].

Another such victory over the Romans, and
we are undone.
--Pyrrhus (c. 318—272 BC)
King of Epirus.
Referring to the dearly bought victory at Asculum
in 280 BC, hence the phrase "pyrrhic victory."
Quoted in Plutarch _Parallel Lives_.

The gods are on the side of the stronger.
--Tacitus [or Publius Cornelius Tacitus or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus]
(c.55—c.117), Roman orator, lawyer, senator, and historian.
_Histories_, bk. 4, ch. 17

The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.
--Television catchphrase
"Wide World of Sports" [American TV show 1961—1998]

It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.
--Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (1694—1778)
French writer and philosopher.
Letter to Franηois-Louis-Henri Leriche [6 February 1770].

-----

quash [KWOSH], transitive verb:
1. (Law) To abate, annul, overthrow, or make void;
as, "to quash an indictment."
2. To crush; to subdue; to suppress or extinguish
summarily and completely; as, "to quash a rebellion."


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