Quotes
Quotes theSam!! (me) gathered from the Internet.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.
A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
“Freedom has a taste to those who fight that the protected will never know.”
"Must be some kind of brain damage. Only those with it can see it in others."
And in despair I bowed my head, "There is no peace on earth," I said. "For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men." Then pealed the bells more loud and deep, "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men."
It’s not about being right, it’s about doing right.
We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."--George Orwell
There is no 'tough.' There is 'trained' and 'untrained' - which are you?" -John Creasy, "Man on Fire"
Training is nothing, Will is everything.
Success breeds jealousy; if they are jealous, it’s their problem.
When young men seek to be like you, when lazy men resent you, when powerful men look over their shoulder at you, when cowardly men plot behind your back, when corrupt men wish you were gone and evil men want you dead . . . Only then will you have done your share."
- Phil Messina
"The will to win is not as important as the willingness to prepare to win"
"If you have time to think about whether or not you need to shoot, you don't have to"
"On the plains of hesitation lay the blackened bones of countless thousands who at the dawn of victory laid down to rest, and resting they died"
You can not tap out on the street.
If you have a strong enough why you can bear almost any how"
--Nietzshe
"circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him."
--James Allan
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world."
… Mary Shafer, NASA Engineer
This is the law:
The purpose of fighting is to win.
There is no possible victory in defense.
The sword is more important than the shield and skill is more important than either.
The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental.
- John Steinbeck
"God knows, everyone else has to guess."
- My Mother
"There are sharks in the water, bears in the woods, and snakes in the grass - watch your step."
- G-Raptor
"I do not love the sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, I love only that which they defend."
- Faramir / Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien)
“…the right to own and carry guns is clear. The Constitution says so. The right to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged. Keep means own and bear means carry and there’s no other way to look at it, and the courts that feel differently are the same courts that once said black people were property.”
- Bob Lonsberry
"You know why there's a second amendment? In case the government doesn't obey the first one."
- Rush Limbaugh
"The only honorable response to violence is counterviolence"
"Man fights with his mind. His hands and his weapons are simply extensions of his will."
"Alertness is the first principle of personal defense."
"If there is one thing that is most vital, it is concentration on the front sight."
"Fear that nullifies a man's ability to cope with the danger which gives rise to the fear is an unacceptable emotion."
All from Jeff Cooper
chance favors the prepared mind."
the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and travelled by those who knew better.
a man asked me how many men i'd killed. i told him, i'd rape his corpse if he asked again. he asked my friend if i was seeing a counselor.
"to thine ownself be true."
"the man that lives by the pistol, dies by the smoking gun. i hear a whistle blowing, lord, when's my train gonna come?"
Experience is what you get instead of getting what you wanted."
My personal favorite. And as you get older this means more and more to you:
"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.
From Julius Ceaser by William Shakespeare"
"the only way to survive a violent situation-is to be the one doing the violence"
From Target Focus Training www.tftgroup.com
Asked why it was dishonorable to return without a shield and not without a helmet, the Spartan king, Demaratos (510 - 491) is said to have replied: "Because the latter they put on for their own protection, but the shield for the common good of all." (Plutarch, Mor.220)
A prepared warrior knows what he is going to do long before combat begins. (Mindset)
His courage takes him into action when action is required. (Execution)
His internal commitment and perseverance comes from the deepest recesses of his soul. He will not quit until his objective is complete. (Will)
Everything else works its way out in accordance to the training and discipline one has undergone.
decide to be agressive enough, quickly enough.
Everyone has a plan, till they get punched in the face
If all else fails, cover it with the front sight and gently squeeze the trigger.
This one is from dad speraking about his shooting back in 1992 "13 yrs later nobody remembers what my stance was, how many rds I fired, or what gun I had. All they remember is that I WON!"
You can never be too careful
If you can't shoot back, your tactics suck!
Girls, Guitars, Guns, in that order
"Pain is a good thing, it let's you know you are still alive"
"It is the soldier, not the reporter, Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, Who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, Who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag, And whose coffin is draped by the flag, Who allows the protester to burn the flag."
Plus, it is me (the soldier), who gives me the right to stomp the shit out of anyone defacing my flag!
The battle is not lost until our women lay their hearts on the ground" Cherokee Warrior
"Suffer Quietly"
Only the dead have seen the end of war" Plato
"No one loves a warrior until the enemy is at the front gate"
(sad but true)
this is a comment from a local PD chief that shoots with us from time to time.
"it's not a target. it's the fucking bad guy that wants to rape your wife and molest your kids. kill the mother fucker!"
he likes to scream this when he sees people on the course shifting gears from defensive shooting to target shooting. he is great at reading body language. it tends to work.
-------
I was listening to Rush today. He followed the President's Veteran's Day speech with a short tribute to the veterans. It included a short essay on courage. I thought this was a good place for it.
"...One other thing. The president early on in his speech spoke of courage, and just quite by coincidence, I happened to run across a thought or two, a little mini-essay on courage by G. K. Chesterton from his essay in 1908 called Orthodoxy. And it's interesting. Some of it a little bit difficult to cipher through, but other parts of this just make brilliant sense.
He writes: "Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. 'He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,' is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. The paradox is the whole principle of courage, even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity and I certainly have not done so, but Christianity has done more. It has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living, and him who dies for the sake of dying, and it has held up ever since, above the European lances, the banner of the mystery of chivalry, the Christian courage, which is a disdain of death."
I read this today, and I was hoping I would have the occasion to read this without just throwing it in here as a non sequitur without some sort of transition. When the president started talking about it I ran back to the computer and printed this out, because the part of it that hits home with me is the business that if you're cut off by the sea, you have to save your life by risking it. You can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. Which is precisely what combat soldiers do each and every day, and the attitude that they must have about it is also something that's special and unique, and people that have never, ever engaged in it -- and most of us haven't -- will never understand it. That's why this little short essay by G. K. Chesterton from Orthodoxy in 1908, I think, was so powerful to me. It finally explains what sets these people apart. So it's Veterans Day, and we salute all of you past, present and future, and your families.
-- Rush
------
Quotes from Real Life:
"See the Spider??"
the late Granpa Flyinghorse, WWII, Corporal, US Army
"I will never give up!
No matter what!!
AAnndd keeep ggooiing!!"
Alaska State Trooper Sgt at VPSO Academy, 0500hrs PT/Aerobic Death
If you're not doing it now, you'll never do it.
When a woman shows you her true face, believe her.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.
A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
“Freedom has a taste to those who fight that the protected will never know.”
"Must be some kind of brain damage. Only those with it can see it in others."
And in despair I bowed my head, "There is no peace on earth," I said. "For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men." Then pealed the bells more loud and deep, "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men."
It’s not about being right, it’s about doing right.
We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."--George Orwell
There is no 'tough.' There is 'trained' and 'untrained' - which are you?" -John Creasy, "Man on Fire"
Training is nothing, Will is everything.
Success breeds jealousy; if they are jealous, it’s their problem.
When young men seek to be like you, when lazy men resent you, when powerful men look over their shoulder at you, when cowardly men plot behind your back, when corrupt men wish you were gone and evil men want you dead . . . Only then will you have done your share."
- Phil Messina
"The will to win is not as important as the willingness to prepare to win"
"If you have time to think about whether or not you need to shoot, you don't have to"
"On the plains of hesitation lay the blackened bones of countless thousands who at the dawn of victory laid down to rest, and resting they died"
You can not tap out on the street.
If you have a strong enough why you can bear almost any how"
--Nietzshe
"circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him."
--James Allan
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world."
… Mary Shafer, NASA Engineer
This is the law:
The purpose of fighting is to win.
There is no possible victory in defense.
The sword is more important than the shield and skill is more important than either.
The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental.
- John Steinbeck
"God knows, everyone else has to guess."
- My Mother
"There are sharks in the water, bears in the woods, and snakes in the grass - watch your step."
- G-Raptor
"I do not love the sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, I love only that which they defend."
- Faramir / Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien)
“…the right to own and carry guns is clear. The Constitution says so. The right to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged. Keep means own and bear means carry and there’s no other way to look at it, and the courts that feel differently are the same courts that once said black people were property.”
- Bob Lonsberry
"You know why there's a second amendment? In case the government doesn't obey the first one."
- Rush Limbaugh
"The only honorable response to violence is counterviolence"
"Man fights with his mind. His hands and his weapons are simply extensions of his will."
"Alertness is the first principle of personal defense."
"If there is one thing that is most vital, it is concentration on the front sight."
"Fear that nullifies a man's ability to cope with the danger which gives rise to the fear is an unacceptable emotion."
All from Jeff Cooper
chance favors the prepared mind."
the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and travelled by those who knew better.
a man asked me how many men i'd killed. i told him, i'd rape his corpse if he asked again. he asked my friend if i was seeing a counselor.
"to thine ownself be true."
"the man that lives by the pistol, dies by the smoking gun. i hear a whistle blowing, lord, when's my train gonna come?"
Experience is what you get instead of getting what you wanted."
My personal favorite. And as you get older this means more and more to you:
"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.
From Julius Ceaser by William Shakespeare"
"the only way to survive a violent situation-is to be the one doing the violence"
From Target Focus Training www.tftgroup.com
Asked why it was dishonorable to return without a shield and not without a helmet, the Spartan king, Demaratos (510 - 491) is said to have replied: "Because the latter they put on for their own protection, but the shield for the common good of all." (Plutarch, Mor.220)
A prepared warrior knows what he is going to do long before combat begins. (Mindset)
His courage takes him into action when action is required. (Execution)
His internal commitment and perseverance comes from the deepest recesses of his soul. He will not quit until his objective is complete. (Will)
Everything else works its way out in accordance to the training and discipline one has undergone.
decide to be agressive enough, quickly enough.
Everyone has a plan, till they get punched in the face
If all else fails, cover it with the front sight and gently squeeze the trigger.
This one is from dad speraking about his shooting back in 1992 "13 yrs later nobody remembers what my stance was, how many rds I fired, or what gun I had. All they remember is that I WON!"
You can never be too careful
If you can't shoot back, your tactics suck!
Girls, Guitars, Guns, in that order
"Pain is a good thing, it let's you know you are still alive"
"It is the soldier, not the reporter, Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, Who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, Who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag, And whose coffin is draped by the flag, Who allows the protester to burn the flag."
Plus, it is me (the soldier), who gives me the right to stomp the shit out of anyone defacing my flag!
The battle is not lost until our women lay their hearts on the ground" Cherokee Warrior
"Suffer Quietly"
Only the dead have seen the end of war" Plato
"No one loves a warrior until the enemy is at the front gate"
(sad but true)
this is a comment from a local PD chief that shoots with us from time to time.
"it's not a target. it's the fucking bad guy that wants to rape your wife and molest your kids. kill the mother fucker!"
he likes to scream this when he sees people on the course shifting gears from defensive shooting to target shooting. he is great at reading body language. it tends to work.
-------
I was listening to Rush today. He followed the President's Veteran's Day speech with a short tribute to the veterans. It included a short essay on courage. I thought this was a good place for it.
"...One other thing. The president early on in his speech spoke of courage, and just quite by coincidence, I happened to run across a thought or two, a little mini-essay on courage by G. K. Chesterton from his essay in 1908 called Orthodoxy. And it's interesting. Some of it a little bit difficult to cipher through, but other parts of this just make brilliant sense.
He writes: "Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. 'He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,' is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. The paradox is the whole principle of courage, even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity and I certainly have not done so, but Christianity has done more. It has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living, and him who dies for the sake of dying, and it has held up ever since, above the European lances, the banner of the mystery of chivalry, the Christian courage, which is a disdain of death."
I read this today, and I was hoping I would have the occasion to read this without just throwing it in here as a non sequitur without some sort of transition. When the president started talking about it I ran back to the computer and printed this out, because the part of it that hits home with me is the business that if you're cut off by the sea, you have to save your life by risking it. You can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. Which is precisely what combat soldiers do each and every day, and the attitude that they must have about it is also something that's special and unique, and people that have never, ever engaged in it -- and most of us haven't -- will never understand it. That's why this little short essay by G. K. Chesterton from Orthodoxy in 1908, I think, was so powerful to me. It finally explains what sets these people apart. So it's Veterans Day, and we salute all of you past, present and future, and your families.
-- Rush
------
Quotes from Real Life:
"See the Spider??"
the late Granpa Flyinghorse, WWII, Corporal, US Army
"I will never give up!
No matter what!!
AAnndd keeep ggooiing!!"
Alaska State Trooper Sgt at VPSO Academy, 0500hrs PT/Aerobic Death
If you're not doing it now, you'll never do it.
When a woman shows you her true face, believe her.
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