battle

In the early morning the mill girls clumping down the cobbled street, all in clogs, making a curiously formidable sound, like an army hurrying into battle. I suppose this is the typical sound of Lancashire.

—Orwell, George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair

Skiing is a battle against yourself, always to the frontiers of the impossible.But most of all, it must give you pleasure. It is not an obligation but a joy.

—Killy,Jean-Claude

Battles decide everything.

—Clausewitz, Karl von

The Englishwoman's clothes, too, have improved out of all knowledge†no longer are our hats, as inVictorian days, a kind of Pageant of Empire, whereon the products of all the colonies battle for precedence.

—Sitwell, Dame Edith Louisa

The battle for the mind of Ronald Reagan was like the trench warfare of  World War I. Never have so many fought so hard for such barren terrain.

—Noonan, Peggy

Now you battle for your all.

—Aeschylus

   The only candidate who can whistle Dixie while humming the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

—O'Brien,JohnJ

Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God's.

—Bible (Old Testament)

Capital accounting in its formally most rational shape†presupposes the battle of man with man.

—Weber, Max

The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.

—Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of

Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing- fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.One of the dominant facts in English life during the past three-quarters of a century has been the decay of ability in the ruling class.

—Orwell, George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair

L'expe¤  rience†d'une femme e¤  crivain est comple'  tement schizophre¤  nique. Il faut toujours faire coupure entre les deux: d'une part, employer un langage qui n'est pas le no" t re†et la lutte qu'on me'  ne sur un autre plan, qui tend 'a casser tout  c° a, a'   essayer de faire a'   travers et dans le langage autre chose. The experience†of the woman writer is completely schizophrenic.One is always torn between two approaches: on the one hand, to use a language that is not ours†and on the other, the battle one fights to break all this up, in order to do something else through and in language.

—Wittig, Monique

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

—Bible (Old Testament)

In anguish we uplift A new unhallowed song: The race is to the swift, The battle to the strong. See Bible101:85.

—Davidson,John

Battle, n. A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

—Bierce, Ambrose Gwinett

Ben Battle was a soldier bold, And used to war's alarms: But a cannon-ball took off his legs, So he laid down his arms!

—Honorius of Autun

'There is no terror, brotherToby, in its looks, but what it borrowsfromgroans and convulsionsöand theblowing of noses, and the wiping away of tears with the bottoms ofcurtains, ina dying man'sroomöStrip itofthese, what is it?'ö'Tis better in battle than in bed,'said my uncle Toby.

—Sterne, Laurence

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

—Lincoln, Abraham

Whither depart the souls of the brave that die in the battle, Die in the lost, lost fight, for the cause that perishes with them?

—Clough, Arthur Hugh

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, council, governments, Myself not least, but honoured of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windyTroy. I am part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life.

—Tennyson

Marriage is like life in thisöthat it is a field of battle, and not a bed of roses.

—Stevenson, Robert Louis

It takes up no falling cause; fights no uphill battle; advocatesnogreat principle; holdsout a helping hand to no oppressed or obscure individual. It is 'ever strong upon the stronger side'.

—Hazlitt,William

   Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die.

—Bible (Old Testament)

When the guns begin to rattle And the men to die Does the Goddess of the Battle Smile or sigh?

—Barker, George Granville

The first blow is half the battle.

—Goldsmith, Oliver

The history of a battle is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost; but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference.

—Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of

Love invincible in battle.

—Sophocles

All thenightthefrogsgo chuckle, all theday thebirdsare singing In the pond beside the meadow, by the roadway poplar- lined, In the field between the trenches are a million blossoms springing 'Twixt the grass of silver bayonets where the lines of battle wind Where man has manned thetrenches for the maiming of his kind.

—MacGill, Patrick

The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but he had fled; The flame that lit the battle's wreck Shone round him o'er the dead.

—Hemans, Felicia ne¤  e Browne

   'You know,' he said very gravely,'it's one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battleöto get one's head cut off.'

—Dodgson

Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.

—Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of

So all day long the noise of battle rolled Among the mountains by the winter sea.

—Tennyson

Outsidetheir laboratories, thephysicianand chemist are soldiers without arms on the field of battle.

—Pasteur, Louis

It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

—Owen,Wilfred

There is no other course but the one we have chosen, except the course of humiliation and darkness, after which there will be no bright sign in the sky or brilliant light on earth† All this will make us more patient and steadfast, and better prepared for the battle which God blesses and which good men support. Then there will only be a glorious conclusion, where a brilliant sun will clear the dust of battle, and where the clouds of battles will be dispelled.

—Hussein, Saddam

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed,ö Or to victorie!ö Now's the day, and now's the hour; See the front o' battle lour; See approach proud Edward's power, Chains and Slaverie!

—Burns, Robert

[Winston Churchill] mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

—Kennedy,John F(itzgerald)

He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle to steady his fellow countrymen and hearten those Europeans upon whom the long dark night of tyranny had descended.

—Murrow, Edward (Edgar) R(oscoe)

When I was a boy the Sioux owned the world; the sun roseand set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle.Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them?† What law have I broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am a Sioux; because I was born where my father lived; because I would die for my country?

—Sitting Bull real name Tatanka Iyotake

He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage: neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha, and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

—Bible (Old Testament)

   A strange manner of battle, where one side works by constant motion and ceaseless charges, while the other can but endure passivelyas it standsfixed tothesod.The Norman arrow and sword worked on: in the English ranks the only movement was the dropping of the dead: the living stood motionless.

—William of Poitiers   11c.

The strife is o'er, the battle done; Now is theVictor's triumph won;

—Pott, Frances

Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futuritycastsuponthepresent; thewordswhichexpress what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Tweedledum and Tweedledee Agreed to have a battle; ForTweedledum said Tweedledee Had spoilt his nice new rattle.

—Dodgson

Sagest in the council was he, kindest in the hall: Sure we never won a battleö'twas Owen won them all. Had he lived, had he lived, our dear country had been free; But he's dead, but he's dead, and 'tis slaves we'll ever be.

—Davis,Thomas Osborne

For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?

—Bible (NewTestament)