Leonard > Leonard's Quotes

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
― George Orwell

“I don't know why I started writing. I don't know why anybody does it. Maybe they're bored, or failures at something else.”
― Cormac McCarthy

“Compassion is the basis of morality.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future.”
― Stephen Ambrose

“You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.”
― Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“Faith is an admirable trait. It's good to have faith in another person. But when faith is used as a substitute for reality, then it becomes a crutch for refusing to deal with that reality.”
― Peter David, Stone and Anvil

“You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“You have my whole heart. You always did.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“When you die it's the same as if everybody else did too.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”
― Tom Clancy

“All the sins I've committed, I've done them with one objective: to keep my men alive. Those kids in my squad, those kids of mine, they are everything. My wife doesn't understand this job or why I do it. My son is too young. My dad wouldn't get it if I tried to explain. My mom would have a heart attack. The need to keep my men alive makes everything else negotiable, and everyone and everything a potential threat.”
― David Bellavia, House to House: An Epic Memoir of War

“The point of life was to press on, to do the best you can, to make the world a better place.”
― Tom Clancy, Clear and Present Danger

“It is a principle of diplomacy that one must know something of the truth in order to lie convincingly.”
― Tom Clancy, The Hunt for Red October

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
― George Orwell

“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ”
― George Orwell

“When Hitler declared war on the United States, he was betting that German soldiers, raised up in the Hitler Youth, would always out fight American soldiers, brought up in the Boy Scouts. He lost that bet. The Boy Scouts had been taught how to figure their way out of their own problems.”
― Stephen Ambrose

“In one of his last newsletters, Mike Ranney wrote: "In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I'm treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?'
No,'" I answered, 'but I served in a company of heroes.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest