Selected Quotations, Authors with names starting N

"Do you know what amazes me more than anything else? The impotence of force to organise anything. There are only two powers in the world: the spirit and the sword. And in the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit."

"If you want to be a leader of men, you have to cultivate a singular appearance."

"The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one that best controls that chaos, both his and that of his enemy."

Napoleon Bonaparte

"Today my friends we have begun negotiations which are to lead to the total evacuation of Soviet troops from Hungary. We have begun negotiations for the annulment of our remaining obligations under the Warsaw Pact. Please show patience. Such negotiations cannot be completed today or tomorrow. But surely the results I have achieved already since I took power entitle me to your confidence." 29.10.1956

"This is Imre Nagy speaking. Early this morning Soviet troops started to attack the Hungarian capital with the apparent purpose of overthrowing the democratic government of the Hungarian People's Republic." 04.11.1956

"May god spare me the punishment of being rehabilitated by my own murderers." Imre Nagy in 1956.
"I believe that the political testament of Imre Nagy was resurrected today." Sandor Kopacsi, 17.6.89 funeral. He was Budapest Police Commander in 1956

"Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave when they think that their children are naive."

"Sunset and sunrise are blasphemous, they are mockeries to man, only the black rain out of the bruised and swollen clouds all through the bitter black of night is fit atmosphere in such a land. The rain drives on, the stinking mud becomes more evilly yellow, the shell holes fill up with green-white water, the roads and tacks are covered in inches of slime, the black dying trees ooze and sweat and the shells never cease ... They plunge into the grave which is this land; one huge grave, and cast upon it the poor dead!"

"There is a maxim in the law that he who voluntarily subjects himself to the risk of serious injury is not to recover damages." p. 17.

"With the aid of [various metal items] we tried to reach the obviously unattainable. Such activities strengthen the spirit of the prisoner of war. They occupy his mind and body and avoid the tedium which may lead to madness. This renders all escape operations worth while, however remote and harebrained the scheme, unless they conflict with some plan that has a real chance of success." p. 67.

"It seemed absurd to me that I should be hiding from the French police in a country where two years before I had come to fight as an ally."

"No country is more dangerous to the underground worker than that in which loyalties are divided. I would always prefer to travel on a clandestine mission through enemy territory where every man’s hand is against me. In Germany, I could assume that no man was my friend. In the unoccupied zone of France no one knew who could be trusted." [They have their exits]

Airey Neave

Minister of Industry and the Environment, Northern Ireland Office.
At site of IRA bombing, Musgrave Pk. Hospital "No-one is going to give into these people, no-one who believes in democracy. Not now, not next year, not in ten years not in a thousand years, not on this side of Hell. And Hell is where these people ought to be." 2/11/91.

Plaza Hotel car bomb (6 inj) "vicious ... people who don't give a damn for human life." 28/11/91.

"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes when we shall redeem that pledge, not wholly, or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance." August 15 1947.

Jawaharial Nehru

"When the existence of the Church is threatened, she is released from the commandments of morality. With unity as the end, the use of every means is sanctified, even cunning, treachery, violence, simony, prison, death. For all order is for the sake of the community, and the individual must be sacrificed to the common good." Bishop of Verden, De Schismate libri, AD 1411.

Dietrich van Nieheim

"In The Edge of the Sword de Gaulle wrote that a leader 'must be able to create a spirit of confidence in those under him. He must be able to assert his authority.' Authority, de Gaulle argued, derives from prestige, and prestige 'is largely a matter of feeling, suggestion and impression, and it depends primarily on the possession of an elementary gift, a natural attitude' ... lately gone by the fashionable term charisma. ... To this ineffable quality, de Gaulle wrote, a leader must add three concrete ones: mystery, character, and grandeur. 'First and foremost,' he declared, 'there can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt. All religions have their tabernacles, and no man is a hero to his valet.' "

Richard Nixon