It looks as if the war in Europe is rapidly moving towards a conclusion. Probably I am wrong about that but I can't see how it can be otherwise. It seems clear that the Allies are outclassed on mechanical equipment, and it is foolish to talk about modernizing their Armies in times like these, they ought to have thought of that five years ago. There is no excuse for them not thinking of that except for the unintelligent, in fact, stupid, narrow-minded and selfish leadership which the democracies of the world are cursed with. It is all very well as everybody is in the same position, but when some other system develops stronger leadership, works hard and long, and intelligently and aggressively-which are good traits-and, superimposed upon that, develops the instinct of a racketeer, there is nothing for the democracies to do but fold up. And that is about what it looks as if they are going to do.
Alfred P. SloanRelated topics
allies clear equipment everybody excuse five good hard moving nothing ought position see stupid talk thought thinking times war well wrong works years looksRelated quotes
He (Gauis Gracchus) was a political incendiary. Not only was the hundred years' revolution which dates from him, so far as it was one man's work, the work of Gaius Gracchus, but he was above all the true founder of that terrible civic proletariat flattered and paid by the classes above it, which was through it aggregation in the capital - the natural consequence of the largesses of corn - at once utterly demoralized and made conscious of its power, and which - with its pretensions, sometimes stupid, sometimes knavish, and its talk of the sovereignty of the people - lay like an incubus for five hundred years upon the Roman commonwealth and only perished along with it. And yet again, this greatest of political transgressors was the regenerator of his country. There is scarce a fruitful idea in Roman monarchy, which is not traceable to Gaius Gracchus.
Theodor Mommsen
In 1872 we sent to the protected countries of Europe and to the United States of America 116,000,000 of exported manufactures. In 1882...it fell to 88,000,000. In 1892...it fell to 75,000,000. In 1902, last year, although the general exports had increased, the exports of manufactures had decreased again to 73½ millions. And the total result of this is that after 30 years you are sending 42½ millions of manufactures less to the protected countries than you did 30 years ago. Then there the neutral countries...they have fallen 3½ millions...you have lost altogether in your export of manufactures 46 millions. How is it that that has not impressed the people before? Because the change has been concealed by our statistics... You have failed to observe that the continuance of your trade is dependent entirely on British possessions. While these foreign countries have declined 46 millions your British possessions have increased 40 millions.
Joseph Chamberlain
I was obliged to retract, like a good Catholic, this opinion of mine; and as a punishment my dialogue was prohibited; and after five months being dismissed from Rome (at the time that the city of Florence was infected with plague), the habitation which with generous pity was assigned to me, was that of the dearest friend I had in Siena, Monsignor the Archbishop Piccolomini, whose most agreeable conversation I enjoyed with such quite and satisfaction of mind, that having there resumed my studies, I discovered and demonstrated a great number on the mechanical conclusions on the resistance of solids ... after about five months, the pestilence having ceased, the confinement of that house was changed by His Holiness for the freedom of the country so agreeable to me, whence I returned to the villa of Bellosguardo, and afterwards to Arcetri, where I still breathe salubrious air near my dear native-country Florence. Stay sane.
Galileo Galilei
And this in turn makes it plain that the Right Man problem is a problem of highly dominant people. Dominance is a subject of enormous importance to biologists and zoologists because the percentage of dominant animals - or human beings - seems to be amazingly constant. Bernard Shaw once asked the explorer H. M. Stanley how many other men could take over leadership of the expedition if Stanley himself fell ill; Stanley replied promptly: "One in twenty." "Is that exact or approximate?" asked Shaw. "Exact." And biological studies have confirmed this as a fact. For some odd reason, precisely five per cent - one in twenty - of any animal group are dominant - have leadership qualities. During the Korean War, the Chinese made the interesting discovery that if they separated out the dominant five per cent of American prisoners of war, and kept them in separate compound, the remaining ninety-five per cent made no attempt to escape.
Colin Wilson
The Prime Minister said...that where I failed, for all my brilliant gifts, was in the faculty of judging. I will gladly submit my judgement about foreign affairs and national defence during the last five years, in comparison with his own. ... In February the Prime Minister said the tension in Europe had greatly relaxed. A few weeks later Nazi Germany seized Austria. I predicted that he would repeat this statement as soon as the shock of the rape of Austria passed away. He did so in the very same words at the end of July. By the middle of August Germany was mobilising...which...ended in the complete destruction and absorption of the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia. ... in November...he told us that Europe was settling down to a more peaceful state. The words were hardly out of his mouth before the Nazi atrocities on the Jewish population resounded throughout the civilised world.
Winston Churchill