Quote mining

Misgovernment is of four kinds, often in combination. They are:

1. tyranny or oppression, of which history provides so many well-known examples that they do not need citing;


2. excessive ambition, such as Athens' attempted conquest of Sicily in the Peloponnesian War, Philip II's of England via the Armada, Germany's twice-attempted rule of Europe by a self-conceived master race, Japan's bid for an empire of Asia;


3. incompetence or decadence, as in the case of the late Roman empire, the last Romanovs and the last imperial dynasty of China; and finally


4. folly or perversity.

Barbara W. Tuchman
The March of Folly (1984)
quoted by Lewis H. Lapham
in The Road To Babylon
Harper's magazine (12/2002)

War is the unfolding of miscalculations.

Barbara Tuchman
The Guns of August (1962)

All battles are, in some degree, and to a greater or lesser number of the combatants, disasters.

John Keegan
The Face of Battle (1976)

Many wars in this century have been started with only the most nebulous expectations regarding the outcome, on the strength of plans that paid little, if any, attention to the ending. Many began inadvertantly without any plans at all.

Fred Charles Ikle
Every War Must End (1991)

Peace is not some hippie buzzword or dreamy pacifist ideology. It's an active, long-term military strategy that requires different, possibly counterintuitive, tactics. The world knows that the United States is unmatched in its ability to wage and execute wars. In the future, we will have to become equally unparalleled in our ability to negotiate and sustain peace.

Cassidy Black
letter to the editor
New York Times Magazine (4/25/2004)

To fight today's terrorism with an army is like trying to shoot a cloud of mosquitoes with a machine gun.

Isabel Hilton
"Everybody Hates Somebody Somewhere"
New York Times Book Review (11/16/2003)

[N]o war can be won without young men dying. Those things which are precious are saved only by sacrifice.

David Kenyon Webster
letter (c. 02/1945)
quoted by Stephen Ambrose in
Band of Brothers (1992)

Let's work the problem people. Let's not make things worse by guessing.

Apollo 13 (film, 1995)
directed by Ron Howard
written by William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert
based on Lost Moon by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger
[spoken by "Gene Krantz", played by Ed Harris]

In the long run knowledge guarantees neither wisdom nor sound judgment.

Sherwin B. Nuland
"Getting in Nature's Way"
New York Review of Books (2/12/04)