Jared Diamond Quotes
Native Americans had only stone and wooden weapons and no animals that could be ridden. Those military advantages repeatedly enabled troops of a few dozen mounted Spaniards to defeat Indian armies numbering in the thousands.
Quotes to Explore
-
Military brats have this toughness: they're almost like orphans or foster children; they develop little mechanisms. It sets you up to look at things a little differently.
-
My brother Joseph, who is 14 years older than me, was already on his national military compulsory service when I was 4 years old, the age from which I remember myself.
-
I'm not saving lives.
-
When there's a status quo, usually what shakes everybody up is some sort of military confrontation, at which point we all come running and screaming to pick up the pieces.
-
If I had undertaken the practical direction of military operations, and anything went amiss, I feared that my conscience would torture me, as guilty of the fall of my country, as I had not been familiar with military tactics.
-
We worked on solving the problem of voice communications in a noisy military environment. We established military codes that are highly audible and invented selection tests for personnel who had a superior ability to recognize sound in a noisy background.
-
You can't solve a dignity problem with military force.
-
The War on Drugs employs millions - politicians, bureaucrats, policemen, and now the military - that probably couldn't find a place for their dubious talents in a free market, unless they were to sell pencils from a tin cup on street corners.
-
Just this week, Syria broke off all relations with the United States military and the CIA.
-
Flamethrowers have been used by many armies in many wars, including by American Marines in Korea and Vietnam. They cause horrific deaths and are thus a serious public-relations liability. The U.S. military apparently phased them out in 1978.
-
I did my military service from 1989 - 92 and I was never shot at or had to fire on anybody. I was very lucky. I was more involved in intelligence and counter-intelligence.
-
It's not the job of the U.S. military to do nation-building or produce democratic utopias.
-
It is the duty of our men to enroll themselves in the national services. We need all our manpower for defence. For the military and... we need a quarter of a million men.
-
In committing an estimated 3,000 U.S. forces to join international Ebola relief efforts in West Africa, President Obama seems to be fulfilling the plans of highly influential progressive groups who seek to transform the American military into more of a social-work organization.
-
Augustine says that you don't understand a nation by the throw weight of its military or the strength of its research universities or the size of its population, but by looking at what it loves in common. To assess a nation, you look at the health and strength of its ideals. And there's no question that the common love in America is freedom.
-
We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.
-
Carter's hopes died when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and he ended up having to reverse policy and launch the military buildup that Reagan continued. Mr. Obama would be forced back into a war on terror if terrorist groups pull off enough damaging or frightening attacks to force this issue to the fore.
-
I go into military communities and do fundraisers and that kind of thing with the band, because I know that the music can help do a lot of things. It can bring communities together, it can raise awareness... and it entertains.
-
If life is a checker game, someone else is moving the pieces. It isn't us. Don't be surprised by amazing coincidences. There are no accidents. Consider, as I learned to do, the incredible interconnectedness of all of life.
-
It is better to have a bad method than to have none.
-
I voted proudly for the first time for John Fitzgerald Kennedy for president of the United States.
-
To die under the flag of Vietnam, of Venezuela, of Guatemala, of Laos, of Guinea, of Colombia, of Bolivia, of Brazil - to name only a few scenes of today's armed struggle - would be equally glorious and desirable for an American, an Asian, an African, even a European.
-
When you look at the history of wars, they ultimately revolve around one claim: "My god is better than yours."
-
Native Americans had only stone and wooden weapons and no animals that could be ridden. Those military advantages repeatedly enabled troops of a few dozen mounted Spaniards to defeat Indian armies numbering in the thousands.
