Selected Quotations, Authors with names starting L

"Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect." The Lombardi Rules

"I don’t think he ever completely gave it up. It’s like a senator who wants to become President. At some point, time passes you by and you know intellectually that it won’t happen, but in your heart you don’t give up." (Friend of independent counsel Kenneth Stark)

"In the Pentagon, there had been a massive de facto tilt toward Britain from the very first day. It was the inescapable result of the 'special relationship'. The depth and breadth of cultural, social and historic ties between America and Britain were overwhelming.
It is highly unlikely that even Jeane Kirkpatrick, the US ambassador to the UN, or anyone at the State Department or the White House understood at first the extent of the assistance we were providing, especially in communications and intelligence.
"We had, for instance, sent two tankers to Ascension Island, without which the Task Force could not have made it to the Falklands."

"Revolution could never grip Berlin. Germans would only storm a railway platform after first queueing for platform tickets."

"One fool can ask more questions in a minute than twelve wise men can answer in an hour." 15 Mar 1918, to pro-war critics in the Congress of Soviets

"Foolish, or even criminal, is the word to describe the behaviour of any Army that does not prepare itself to master all the various types of weapon ... that the enemy has or might have."

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"The administrative developments of scientific war had clogged its mobility and destroyed its dash; and troubles grew in geometrical rather that arithmetical progression for each new mile its commanding officers put between themselves and Medina, their ill-found, insecure and inconvenient base." p. 139.

"Most wars are wars of contact, both forces striving into touch to avoid tactical surprise." p. 200.

"It seemed to me proven that our rebellion had an unassailable base, guarded not only from attack, but from the fear of attack. It had a sophisticated alien enemy, disposed as an army of occupation in an area greater than could be dominated effectively from fortified posts. It had a friendly population, of which some two in the hundred were active, and the rest sympathetic to the point of not betraying the movements of the minority. The active rebels had the virtues of secrecy and self-control, and the qualities of speed, endurance and independence of arteries of supply. They had technical equipment enough to paralyse the enemy's communications. A province would be won when we had taught the civilians in it to die for our ideal of freedom. The presence of the enemy was secondary. Final victory seemed certain, if the war lasted long enough for us to work it out." p. 202.

"We heard that the Turks patrolled their neighbourhood actively at night. A bad habit this: so we sent off two men to lie by each blockhouse and fire a few shots after dark. The enemy, thinking it a prelude to attack, stood-to in their trenches all night, while we were comfortably sleeping." p. 205.

passage from p.339 ff. describing the incredible ethnic, social and religious diversity in Near East.

"In peace-armies discipline [means] the hunt, not of an average, but of an absolute; the hundred per cent standard in which the ninety-nine were played down to the level of the weakest man on parade. The aim [is] to render the unit a unit, the man a type; in order that their effort may be calculable, and the collective output even in grain and bulk. The deeper the discipline, the lower [is] the individual excellence; also the more sure the performance." p. 347.

"Discipline [is] a character or a stamp by which to mark off soldiers from complete men, and obliterate the humanity of the individual. It resolved itself easiest into the restrictive, and making men not do this or that: and so could be fostered by a rule severe enough to make them despair of disobedience .. It was not to impress upon men that their will must actively second the officers', for then there would have been, as [] among irregulars, that momentary pause for thought transmission, or digestion; for the nerves to resolve the relaying private will into active consequence. On the contrary, each regular Army sedulously rooted out this significant pause from its companies on parade. The drill-instructors tried to make obedience an instinct, a mental reflex, following as instantly on the command as though the motor power of the individual wills had been invested together in the system." p. 522.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom "With 2000 years of examples behind us we have no excuse when fighting, for not fighting well."

"Only the person capable of adapting to everyone will emerge the victor over all."

Lao Tzu

"A man who does not lose his reason over certain things has none to lose." [German dramatist]

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

"No party in Ireland is prepared to accept anything except the impossible. But that is no excuse for British government inaction." announcing plans for partition, 22.12.1919

"We shall have to fight another war all over again in 25 years at three times the cost." on Treaty of Versailles

"The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men, the conviction and the will to carry on."

"Humphrey advised me that on previous occasions a generally acceptable answer had been that, while one does not seek the office, one has pledged oneself to the service of one's country and if one's colleagues persuaded one that that was the best way one could serve, one might reluctantly have to accept the responsibility, whatever one's own private wishes might be."

"General Howard continued to explain the RAF mentality as he sees it. 'They want the bomb to be carried around in an aeroplane, you see. All they're really interested in is flying around dropping things on people. Not that they're any good at it - I mean, they couldn't even find the runway at Port Stanley. They'd probably never even find Moscow. If they did, they'd probably miss."

"You need to know things even when you don't need to know them. You need to know them not because you need to know them but because you need to know whether or not you need to know, and if you don't need to know you still need to know that so you know that there was no need to know."

"That's another of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I give confidential briefings; you leak; he has been charged under Section 2a of the Official Secrets Act."

"While it is true that the minutes are indeed an authoritative record of the Committee's deliberations, it is nevertheless undeniable that a deliberate attempt at a comprehensive delineation of every contribution and interpolation would necessitate an unjustifiable elaboration and wearisome extension of the documentation."

"The Times is read by the people who run the country. The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country. The Morning Star is read by the people who think the country ought to be run by another country. The Independent is read by people who don't know who runs the country but are sure they're doing it wrong. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by the people who own the country. The Daily Express is read by the people who think the country ought to be run as it used to be run. The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who still think it is their country. And the Sun's readers don't care who runs the country providing she has big tits."

"It is well for the readers to remember that the Foreign Office has three national groups that it loves:

It hates the French most of all. This is why talking directly to the French is regarded as prima facie an act of treason by the FO."