: If we beat the King ninety-nine times, yet he is King still so will his posterity be after him; but if the King beat us once we shall be hanged, and our posterity made slaves. : My Lord, if this be so, why did we take up arms at first? This is against fighting hereafter. If so, let us make peace, be it never so base.

-Cromwell, Oliver
  EARLOFMANCHESTEROLIVER CROMWELL1644  Recorded in The Calendar of State Papers,10 Nov.

For too long, society has resembled a pyramid that has been turned upside down and made to rest on its summit. I have replaced it on its base.

-LouisNapoleon Bonaparte
  Speech to the Legislative  Assembly, 29 Mar.

Labour without joy is base. Labour without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base.Joy without labour is base.

-Ruskin,John
  Time andTide, letter 5.

If I were fierce and bald and short of breath I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base, And speed glum heroes up the line to death.

-Sassoon, Siegfried Louvain
  'Base Details'.