Random Quotes

When I am tired and need a break from studying I have found Great Quotations That Shaped the Western World a relaxing read. Below are some random quotes that I came across last night.

Ardant Du Picq

(French Colonel who wrote Battle Studies (1880))
"Discipline cannot be secured or created in a day. It is an institution, a tradition."

Blaise Pascal

(French, philosopher and mathematician, who discovered probability theory)
"Cleopatra's nose, had it been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed."

"The heart has reason's which reason knows nothing of."

"The best function of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which surpass it."

Sir Winston Churchill

(English, prime minister)
"I think "No comment" is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again. I got it from Summer Wells."

"The Germans combine in the most deadly manner the qualities of the warrior and slave."

I asked my Grandma what was so interesting about Churchill. Her response, "Now that would be an interesting study. He was what the Bible would call a double -minded man, you know, who is unstable in all his ways. Sometimes he made the most brilliant of decisions, others, the most stupid. He seemed to be proud of his own mind." I found her take amusing and interesting as she was a contemporary of Churchill and watched the same world events occur (albeit from a distance).

My take on Churchill is this, He was a man out to make a name for himself (In Genesis we are told that the people who were building the tower of Babel were out to make a name for themselves) perhaps because he feared oblivion. He had a passion to advance the British Empire and he saw that the underlying foundation of Christian beliefs were the bedrock that made England great. In any case I do believe he is an interesting study.

Richard Rumbold

(Scottish, Puritan Solder. These were his last words on the scaffold)
"I never would believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden"