"So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge."

Cicero

"As was the case with most mistakes, this one [1973 Golan incident] was made by intelligent men, for the very best of reasons." Sum of all fears.

"Only his revolutionary ethos elevated his activities above the acts of a thug." Sum of all fears, p. 90.

"[An intelligence officer is] an instrument of his country, an observer and reporter of information." Sum of all fears, p. 110.

"The only constant factor in human existence is change." Sum of all fears, p. 135.

"The mark of intellectual honesty is the solicitation of opposing points of view." Sum of all fears, p. 704.

"You cannot convert the absence of information into a conclusion." Sum of all fears, p. 935.

"There is a difference between not knowing anything and understanding that you don't know." Sum of all fears, p. 936.

"The next time you see a soldier or a sailor, you may want to pat them on the back and say thanks for the freedom of press, because they won it for you." Telegraph interview, 27.02.97.

"Warriors do not like to fight. There's nothing glamorous about death. Well I suppose it is exciting in a way, rather like sport. You'd have to say war is the ultimate blood sport. But to deny its necessity is to deny the truth." (ibid.).

Tom Clancy

"It's our old friend bein economical ... with the actualité." of te government approach to the Matrix Churchill case

1988 while Minister of State at the DTI Alan Clark

"War is nothing but the continuation of state policy by other means."

"The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation form their purposes."

"A great part of the information obtained in war is contradictory, a still greater part is false and by far the greatest part is of doubtful character."

"We only wish to represent things as they are, and to expose the error of believing that a mere bravo without intellect can make himself distinguished in war."

"War is the province of uncertainty; three-fourths of the things on which action in war is based lie hidden in the fog of uncertainty."

"Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is very difficult. These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction which no man can imagine exactly who has not seen war."

"It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past."

"The difficulty of accurate recognition constitutes one of the most serious sources of friction in war... War has a way of masking the stage with scenery crudely daubed with fearsome apparitions."

"The military machine - the army and everything related to it - is basically very simple and therefore seems easy to manage. But we should bear in mind that none of its components is of one piece: each piece is composed of individuals, every one of whom retains his potential of friction ... A battalion is made up of individuals, the least important of whom may chance to delay things or somehow make them go wrong."

"I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together."

"Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain."

Carl von Clausewitz

"The successful Intelligence officer must be cool, courageous, and adroit, patient and imperturbable, discreet and trustworthy. He must understand the handling of troops and have a knowledge of the art of war. He must be able to win the confidence of his General, and to inspire confidence in his subordinates. He must have resolution to continue unceasingly his search for information, even in the most disheartening circumstances and after repeated failures. He must have endurance to submit silently to criticism, much of which may be based on ignorance or jealousy. And he must be able to deal with men, to approach his source of information with tact and skill, whether such source be a patriotic gentleman or an abandoned traitor. " p. 13.

"The first principle of deception is to aim to strengthen an opponent's preconceptions." p. 48.

"The Intelligence Corps found itself becoming, in the words of one officer, 'The receptacle and guardian of the cumulative experience of interrogation', a role it still maintains today." p. 95.

December 1945 conference to consider the future of Army photographic interpretation: "'It is probable that qualities count more than qualifications. Of the qualities, visual memory, speed of decision, patience and attraction to detail head the list. The best interpreters have a research-type of mind and realisation of the significance of events.' The same could be extended to all in every field concerned with Strategic Intelligence." p. 111.

"Forearmed - A History of the Intelligence Corps"

Anthony Clayton

"A man who has to be convinced to act before he acts is not a man of action. You must act as you breathe."

Georges Clemenceau

"Don't ask 'What's in it for me;' ask 'what's in it for us?'" (election campaign)

"I've always been conscious of being Irish. I mean, I sort of ... I look Irish. I am Irish."

"‘I have sinned ... but I believe that to be forgiven, more than sorrow is required." 1998

Bill Clinton

"Takt besteht darin, zu wissen, wie weit man zu weit gehen darf."

"The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul. I mistrust those who avoid laughter and its openness."

Jean Cocteau

"Airpower, like modern courtship, offers gratification without commitment."

Eliot Cohen

"In my judgement the greatest single contribution to the persistence of the IRA campaign, and the consequent growth of Pretestant paramilitaries, was the writing, and then the leaking, of an army intelligence report saying terrorism could not be defeated, and that only a political solution could work. This was an act of deepest treachery to those - soldiers, policemen or civilians - who have died. The truth is that democratic politics cannot operate when the veto of violence is so freely exercised as it has been in Northern Ireland. Once the IRA were told they could not be defeated, they had no incentive to stop. Once the Protestant paramilitaries discovered they could destroy the power sharing executive, set up with the support of what were grandiloquently called 'the two sovereign governments', but which proved unable to exercise sovereign power, another Rubicon was crossed. The destruction of that brave experiment confirmed the existence of the veto of violence, on either side. Like all cases of lost innocence, this is probably irredeemable."

As It Seemed to me, John Cole

"To all new truths, or renovation of old truths, it must be as in the ark between the destroyed and the about-to-be renovated world. The raven must be sent out before the dove, and ominous controversy must precede peace and the olive wreath."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"I am signing my own death warrant." IRA Leader on 07.12.1921 signs the Partition Treaty

Michael Collins

"We go to liberate, not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country."

Colonel Tim Collins

"The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue."

Charles Caleb Colton

May dispute and envy fade
May the governing of your affairs
Come back at last to you
My nation

Comenius

"To see the right and not to do it is cowardice."

"there is deceit and cunning and from these wars arise."

Confucius

"Pride is holding your head up when everyone around you has theirs bowed. Courage is what makes you do it." [ The Power of One] p. 150.

"The cactus has all the blessings [God] tried, but failed, to give to man .. It has humility but is not submissive. It grows where no other plant will grow. It does not complain when the sun bakes its back, or the wind tears it from the cliff or drowns it in the dry sand of the desert or when it is thirsty. When the rain comes it stores water for the hard times to come. In good times and in bad it will still flower. It protects itself against danger, but harms no other plant. It adapts perfectly to almost any environment. It has patience and enjoys solitude. It has properties that heal the wounds of men and from it come potions that can make a man touch the face of God or stare into the mouth of Hell. It is the plant of patience and solitude, love and madness, ugliness and beauty, toughness and gentleness." p. 189.

"The greatest camouflage of all is consistency. If you do something often enough and at the same time in the same way, you become invisible." p. 255.

"The searcher for after truth must search with humanity. Ruthless logic is the sign of a limited mind." p. 325.

"Cleverness is a false presumption. It is like being a natural skater, you are so busy doing tricks to impress that you do not see where the thin ice is, and before you know it, you are in deep water. Intelligence is a harder gift for which you must work, practise, challenge it and maybe towards the end of your life you will master it. Cleverness is the shadow, whereas intelligence is the substance." p. 331.

"The value of being the odd man out [is that] the man assumes the role of the loner, the thinker and the searching spirit who calls the privileged and the powerful to task. The power of one [is] the courage to remain separate, to think through to the truth and not to be beguiled by convention or the plausible arguments of those who expect to maintain power, whatever the cost." p. 442.

"Try to imagine being an ordinary guy on a half-starved horse, your regiment decimated by cholera, you've got a lance in your hand and you are looking into the barrels of the Russian artillery holding the Vorontsov Ridge at Balaclava. Some jumped-up Lord in a General's uniform would simply advance on a position and expend men, he didn't care, they were only yeomen and slum slush, cannon fodder. He kept sending them in and eventually they won. Is that bravery? I call it murder and stupidity. The generals murdered their men and the men were too stupid to resist.

History makes it all okay. History forgets the vomit and the shit, the blood and the horses with their guts blown away, the cries of men as they shit their pants and drowned in their own blood. The Charge of the Light Brigade is celebrated because it was the most obviously stupid, most spectacularly stupid, most stupendously stupid sacrifice of men until the brilliant British generals finally topped it for sheer cold-blooded slaughter in the trenches in Flanders and on the cliffs above Gallipoli." p. 450.

"The glittering prizes in life come more to those who persevere despite setback and disappointment than they do to the exceptionally gifted who, with the confidence of the talents bestowed upon them, often pursue the tasks leading to success with less determination." p. 459.

"The joy of a small town lies in its unchanging nature." p. 466.

"Too much cross-referencing of consequence robs the will of its single-minded concentration to win." p. 519.

"The mind is the athlete, the body simply the means it uses to run faster or longer .. shoot straighter or swim harder .. 'First with the head and then with the heart' is more than simply mixing brain with guts. It means thinking well beyond the powers of normal concentration and then daring your courage to follow your thoughts." p. 520.

"Rescue is a long process made dangerous by hastily contrived directions and the terrible infection of fear ." p. 614.

The Power of One
Bryce Courtenay

Coward was quick to spot a performer taking too much of the limelight. At his first dress-rehearsal as a male dancer, not having worn tights before, he had forgotten to wear something under them. "For God's sake," hissed Coward. "Tell that young man to take his Rockingham tea service out of his tights."

Asked his opinion on a play featuring a child prodigy he remarked "Two things should have been cut. The second act and that youngster's throat.

" Gilbert Harding snored noisily throughout Coward's play and later on apologised. Coward wouldn't hear of it. "After all, I've never bored you half as much as you've bored me."

A dim-witted impresario, no friend of Coward's, blew his brains out. "He must have been a marvellously good shot."

A reporter asked him "Do you have something to say to the Star?" "Of course. Twinkle."

Dying words: "Goodnight my darlings, I'll see you tomorrow."

Noël Coward

"Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more."

William Cowper

"You have no idea how innocent we were in the Army in those days. Plenty of smut, of course, and violence was a way of life, but none of this psychological stuff you hear of today." [Conduct Unbecoming]

Rupert Croft-Cooke

"Many voters simply put a huge X through the entire list; vote tellers later confirmed that in many cases the X simply did not reach to the bottom of the page." On the Polish election of 04.06.1989 Adam Zielinski survived and was elected.

Steve Crawshaw of the Independent

Addressing the General Assembly Of the Church of Scotland: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Oliver Cromwell

"It's wrong. A bit like having sex with a dog is wrong." [On the unauthorised use of famous faces by advertisers]

Edwina Currie