Waterloo Quotes

The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. (Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington)
Every man meets his Waterloo at last. View quote
Wendell Phillips
The city overwhelmed our expectations. The Kiplingesque grandeur of Waterloo Station, the Eliotic despondency of the brick row in Chelsea the Dickensian nightmare of fog and sweating pavement and besmirched cornices. View quote
John Updike
The success of our surprise attack on Pearl Harbor will prove to be the Waterloo of the war to follow. For this reason the Imperial Navy is massing the cream of its strength in ships and planes to assure success. View quote
Chuichi Nagumo
Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there. View quote
George Orwell
Was it possible that Napoleon should win the battle of Waterloo? We answer, No! Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blücher? No! Because of God! For Bonaparte to conquer at Waterloo was not the law of the nineteenth century. It was time that this vast man should fall. He had been impeached before the Infinite! He had vexed God! Waterloo was not a battle. It was the change of front of the Universe! View quote
Victor Hugo
My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won: the bravery of my troops hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to win such a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expense of so many gallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune but for the result to the public. View quote
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That's the kind of spirit that I have, too. View quote
Michele Bachmann
I'm not pining for nostalgia back in the '50s and '60s, that isn't it. But that sensibility about how we were grounded here is so important. For instance, another American that was born in Waterloo was John Wayne. We were a very patriotic "yay rah rah America" city and nation and I think that's what America's looking for again. View quote
Michele Bachmann
My dear John Russell, Till lately I had strong confidence in the fair intentions of Napoleon towards England, but of late I have begun to feel great distrust and to suspect that his formerly declared intention of avenging Waterloo has only lain dormant and has not died away. He seems to have thought that he ought to lay his foundation by beating with our aid or with our concurrence, or our neutrality first Russia and then Austria: and by dealing with them generously to make them his friends and in any subsequent quarrel with us. View quote
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
'Waterloo was won,'" quoted Rackham, "'on the playing fields of Eton.'" "What the hell does that mean?" asked Carn Carby. "You never even went to Eton." "It was an analogy," said Rackham. "If you hadn't spent your entire childhood playing war games, you'd actually know something. You're all so uneducated. (Orson Scott Card)
Within the U.S., the Obama presidency will be mainly measured by the success or failure of his economic policies. And here, I fear, the monstrous stimulus package with which this administration stumbled out of the gate will prove to be Obama's Waterloo. View quote
Camille Paglia
[On the phone] "My dear Jim's dead...No dear, he jumped off Waterloo Bridge - Yes, the one next to Charing Cross - No, no, no that's Blackfriars." View quote
Noël Coward
The press has met their Waterloo, and it's Obama. View quote
Rush Limbaugh
About ten days later, it being the time of year when the National collected down and outs to walk on and understudy I arrived at the head office of the National Theatre in Aquinas Street in Waterloo. View quote
Tom Baker
When the first just and friendly man appeared on the earth, from that day a fatal Waterloo was visible for all the men of pride and fraud and blood. View quote
Charles Fletcher Dole
I ought to have died at Waterloo. View quote
Napoleon Bonaparte
Waterloo will wipe out the memory of my forty victories; but that which nothing can wipe out is my Civil Code. That will live forever. View quote
Napoleon Bonaparte
Waterloo! Waterloo! Waterloo! Dismal plain! View quote
Victor Hugo
It occurred on the evening before Waterloo, And troops were lined up on parade, The Sergeant inspecting 'em he was a terror, Of whom every man was afraid. View quote
Stanley Holloway
But not half as angry, I dare swear, as our forefathers would be if they could see the betrayal, by worthless politicians, of the country they worked so hard to build, and the surrender of the precious freedoms won by better men at Gravelines and Trafalgar and Waterloo and Flanders and Alamein and in the skies above Kent. (George MacDonald Fraser)
The views from Waterloo Bridge are amazing - you can see so much of London. View quote
Amelia Warner
John Bull was beat at Waterloo! They'll swear to that in France. View quote
Winthrop Mackworth Praed
At Toulon, Napoleon, looking out of the batteries, drew back a step to let some one take his place. The next moment the new arrived was killed. That step brought the French Empire, and made possible the bloody roll of its victories and defeats. The rout at Waterloo turned on a shower of rain hindering Grouchy's advance. The resolution of a moment, with some men, has been the turning-point of infinite issues to a world. View quote
John Cunningham Geikie
Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won: the bravery of my troops hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to win such a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expens of so many gallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune but for the result to the public. View quote
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington