The water that carries the boat can also overturn it - Chinese proverb

Roman Proverb - Ubi concordia, ibi victoria
(Where is the unity, there is the victory.)

it is that peculiar soldiers' humour which springs from the experience of shared misery and often translates poorly to those not on the spot and enduring the same hardship.

only gods and heroes can be brave in isolation. A man may call upon courage only one way, in the ranks with his brothers-in-arms, the line of his tribe and city.

A massacre is taking place. Tanks are crushing students in the street and the police are firing on everyone who's moving. Tanjug report , evening of 21.12.89 from Bucharest.

Our beloved Comrade Zhivkov has asked to be relieved of his duties on grounds of health. The people thank him for his long selfless service to the Party and the people. Bulgarian Press agency release 9.11.89
Communism cannot be reformed, it can only be dismantled. of 18.11.89 Sofia crowd shout

 Today we were unlucky, but remember - we have only to be lucky once. IRA Statement of responsibility for 1984 Grand Hotel bombing.

"I have laboured under a burden of guilt for twelve years because I didn't sign Charter 77. On 17 November, as I lay on the ground and the police beat me - I felt free! telephone engr quoted in Independent, 29.12.1989

Reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl power station in Ukraine has been damaged in an accident. Other reactors have been closed down and the authorities are dealing with the incident. 30.04.1986 statement on Soviet TV

"If we resign today we will bury our hopes for freedom for many years to come. Several thousand people cannot overcome ten million." Solidarnosc message to the people, end of Dec 1981.

"We cannot allow the enemy to impose on us the times and forms of the fighting." Solidarnosc, 8.10.1982 after banning.

"This so-called message to the working people of Eastern Europe, adopted at Gdansk, has become an outrageous provocation. We expect the Polish Communist Party leadership and the Polish government immediately to take determined radical steps to cut short the malicious anti-Soviet propaganda and actions hostile to the Soviet Union." Message received by Poland's official news agency on 11.09.1981 and published one week later. 13 Dec Jaruzelski declared martial law.

The Soviet Union has been requested to render urgent political, moral, military and economic assistance to the people of Afghanistan. Statement of 24.12.1979 as airborne forces seized Kabul airport.

Don't wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it

"Die meisten Freundschaften zerbrechen nicht, sie verwelken."

Durch Eintracht macht man kleine Dinge groß, durch Zwietracht wird man große Dinge los.

6/93 : õ218 Urteil (Karlsruhe) and Asylgesetz : "Diese Woche haben wir gelernt, daß das ungeborene deutsche Leben mehr wert ist als das geborene ausländische Leben."

Russian proverb : "The hammer shatters glass but forges steel."

fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Czech slogans during Velvet Revolution :
"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness."
"Remember the imprisoned as if you were imprisoned yourself. Remember those who are suffering; suffering can come even to you."
"Come and join us - after all, we're your children !"
Das Praktische am Rassismus ist seine Größe: Er findet noch in den kleinsten Köpfen platz."
Alle Macht geht vom Volk aus - und kehrt nicht zurück.

"All that we can be sure of is tomorrow."

"It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there."

"History since the end of the Second World War in 1945 has been dominated by two great developments: as the Western democracies have withdrawn from empire, turning their former colonial territories into independent nations, the communist powers have created new empires, turning previously independent peoples into colonial satellites." Sunday Times Editorial 18.10.87

It is better to have lived one day as a tiger than one thousand years as a sheep." Tibetan proverb.

Memorial card verse chose by the mother of IRA bomber Paddy Deery who blew himself up in Londonderry in 1987: "Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped into the next room. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Pray, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effort. Life means all that is ever meant. It is the same as it ever was; there is absolutely unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of your sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near around the corner. All is well. Nothing is past; nothing is lost. One brief moment and it will be as it was before - only better, infinitely happier and forever - we will all be one together in Christ. You, whom I have loved so much on earth, pray and live in such a manner that we may be reunited forever."

"He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Shun him. He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is a child. Teach him. He who knows, and knows not that he knows is asleep. Wake him. He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise. Follow him." Persian saying.

"Convention is a doctrine which binds the unimaginative" - Philip Johnston