Quotes About Resilience

It is however easier to infuriate Americans than to cow them.

No prize was to reward the sacrifices of the combatants. Victory was to be bought so dear as to be almost indistinguishable from defeat.

The best method of acquiring flexibility is to have three or four plans for all the probable contingencies, all worked out with the utmost detail.

It is said by several authorities that on being in the saddle he declared, "This day I conquer or die." Nothing was more unlike him. Months before in England he had used such words to Wratislaw, and assuredly they did not go beyond the truth. But, arrived at the point of action, it is more probable that he made some considerate inquiry about his horse's forage or his man's rations.

No war is so sanguinary as the war of exhaustion.

How hard to build. How easy to evacuate. How hard to capture. How easy to do nothing. How hard to achieve anything. War is action, energy & hazard. These sheep only want to browse among the daisies.

War is a hard school, but the British, once compelled to go there, are attentive pupils.

During this period I usually managed to take two afternoons a week in the areas under attack in Kent or Sussex in order to see for myself what was happening.

Nothing…is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

the threat of adversity is a necessary factor in stimulating self-reliance.

Even in famine the seed corn must be preserved.

If you are a great general,' said Pompaedius Silo to Marius, 'come down and fight.' 'If you are a great general,' was the famous answer, 'make me fight against my will.

Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup poll, always feeling one's pulse and taking one's temperature. I see that a speaker at the weekend said that this was a time when leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture.

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.

If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.

all the great struggles of history have been won by superior will-power wresting victory in the teeth of odds or upon the narrowest of margins.

Many things were adopted in the war which we were told were technically impossible, but patience, perseverance, and above all the spur of necessity under war conditions, made men's brains act with greater vigour, and science responded to the demands….

Here we stir the embers of the past and light the beacons of the future. Old flags are raised anew; the passions of vanished generations awake; beneath the shell-torn soil of the twentieth century the bones of long dead warriors and victims are exposed, and the wail of lost causes sounds in the wind.

One always measures friendship by how they show up in bad weather.

Never, never, never, never give up

Hard as are the tests of battle, the armies of all nations have withstood them. But here was the long gnawing strain of suffering much and talking more, of having little and doing nothing.

Weakness is not treason, though it may be equally disastrous.

Yo estaba acostumbrado desde hacia ya mucho tiempo a escribir todas mis notas con tinta encarnada; Fisher empleaba corrientemente un lápiz verde. Cito sus palabras: «Eran las luces de babor y estribor». En tanto estas brillaran juntas, todo iría bien. Habíamos montado una combinación, que en tanto subsistiera, no podía ser vencida ni por intrigas interiores ni por el enemigo en el mar.

Success is Ability to go from One Failure to Another. Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.