Training Quotes

“No matter how long you train someone to be brave, you never know if they are or not until something real happens.”
― Veronica Roth, Insurgent

“Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.”
― John Lubbock, The Pleasures of Life

“My muscles informed me they did not want to go through any more exercise today. So I suggest that maybe he should let me off this time. He laughed, and I'm pretty sure it was at me...not with me.
"Why is that funny?"
"Oh," he said, his smile dropping. "You were serious."
"Of course I was! Look, I've technically been awake for two days. Why do we have to start this training now? Let me go to bed." I whined. "It's just one hour."

"How do you feel right now?"
"I hurt like hell."
"You'll feel worse tomorrow."
"So?"
"So, better get a jump on it while you still feel...not as bad."
"What kind of logic is that?" I retorted.”
― Richelle Mead, Vampire Academy

“What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.”
― Peter Drucker

“How do you feel right now?"
"I hurt like hell."
"You'll feel worse tomorrow."
"So?"
"So, better get a jump on this while you still feel...not as bad."
"What kind of logic is that?" I retorted.”
― Richelle Mead, Vampire Academy

“He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.”
― Confucius

“If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don't bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.”
― Richard Buckminster Fuller

“Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation.”
― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“If you want to find the real competition, just look in the mirror. After awhile you'll see your rivals scrambling for second place.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that — the young man or the young woman must possess or teach himself, train himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless intolerance. That is, to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight, that is ... curiosity to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does. And if you have that, then I don't think the talent makes much difference, whether you've got that or not.

[Press conference, University of Virginia, May 20, 1957]”
― William Faulkner

“Aren't they supposed to be hiring someone else to train me, ANYWAY?"
"Yes," he said, getting up and pulling her to her feet with him. "and I'm worried that if you get into the habit of making out with your instructors, you'll wind up making out with him, too."
"Don't be sexist. They could find me a female instructor."
"In that case you have my permission to make out with her, as long as I can watch."
"Nice." Clary grinned, bending down to fold up the blanket they'd brought to sit on. "You're just worried they'll hire a male instructor and he'll be hotter than you."
Jace's eyebrows went up. "Hotter than ME?"
"It could happen," Clary said. "You know, theoretically."
"Theoretically the planet can crack in half, leaving me on one side and you on the other side, forever and tragically parted, but I'm not worried about that, either. Some things," Jace said, with his customary crooked smile, "are just too unlikely to dwell upon.”
― Cassandra Clare

“I work my hardest and she still kicks the crap out of me.”
― Pittacus Lore, The Power of Six

“It's much easier on the emotions when one sees life as an experiment rather than a struggle for popularity.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“If we can use an H-bomb--and as you said it's no checker game; it's real, it's war and nobody is fooling around--isn't it sort of ridiculous to go crawling around in the weeds, throwing knives and maybe getting yourself killed . . . and even losing the war . . . when you've got a real weapon you can use to win? What's the point in a whole lot of men risking their lives with obsolete weapons when one professor type can do so much more just by pushing a button?'
Zim didn't answer at once, which wasn't like him at all. Then he said softly, 'Are you happy in the Infantry, Hendrick? You can resign, you know.'
Hendrick muttered something; Zim said, 'Speak up!'
I'm not itching to resign, sir. I'm going to sweat out my term.'
I see. Well, the question you asked is one that a sergeant isn't really qualified to answer . . . and one that you shouldn't ask me. You're supposed to know the answer before you join up. Or you should. Did your school have a course in History and Moral Philosophy?'
What? Sure--yes, sir.'
Then you've heard the answer. But I'll give you my own--unofficial--views on it. If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cuts its head off?'
Why . . . no, sir!'
Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy with an H-Bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him . . . but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing . . . but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how--or why--he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people--"older and wiser heads," as they say--supply the control. Which is as it should be. That's the best answer I can give you. If it doesn't satisfy you, I'll get you a chit to go talk to the regimental commander. If he can't convince you--then go home and be a civilian! Because in that case you will certainly never make a soldier.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

“One may not always know his purpose until his only option is to monopolize in what he truly excels at. He grows weary of hearing the answer 'no' time and time again, so he turns to and cultivates, monopolizes in his one talent which others cannot possibly subdue. Then, beyond the crowds of criticism and rejection, the right people recognize his talent - among them he finds his stage.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character.”
― Alan Armstrong

“The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“Before the first streaks of light at dawn on December 7, 275 miles north of Oahu, the six (Japanese) carriers of the Striking Force turned into the southeast wind. Pounding into heavy swells at high speed, the carriers pitched severely with thunderous impact. The wind, surging seas, and roar of warming aircraft engines made communications possible only by hand signals and handheld signal lamps. Salt spray reached the high flight decks, and Commander Fuchida, the group leader, was very concerned about the conditions for launching planes. If this had been a training exercise the launch might have been delayed until conditions improved. However, this was not an exercise, and there would be no delay.”
― Dale A. Jenkins, Diplomats & Admirals: From Failed Negotiations and Tragic Misjudgments to Powerful Leaders and Heroic Deeds, the Untold Story of the Pacific War from Pearl Harbor to Midway

“Thus the man who is responsive to artistic stimuli reacts to the reality of dreams as does the philosopher to the reality of existence; he observes closely, and he enjoys his observation: for it is out of these images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols / The Anti-Christ

“As night fell, Yamamoto, aboard the huge battleship Yamato, steamed eastward at full speed into the night. Far ahead the destroyers went to flank speed to search for the US carriers. Lookouts, with the best night-vision binoculars in the world, swept the night horizon where the very dark sky meets the black ocean. The faintest shape, the tiniest pinprick of light, would show there was something out there, like the superstructure of a ship over the horizon. There was nothing.”
― Dale A. Jenkins, Diplomats & Admirals: From Failed Negotiations and Tragic Misjudgments to Powerful Leaders and Heroic Deeds, the Untold Story of the Pacific War from Pearl Harbor to Midway

“The dogs brought it all back to, you know, to the human side.”
― Luis Carlos Montalván, Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him

“Every beginner possesses a great potential to be an expert in his or her chosen field.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!

“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. (1930)”
― John Broadus Watson, Behaviorism

“I frowned as my fingers throbbed. “Wait a sec. There’s a chance I can’t work with fire and you let me do that?”“How else am I going to figure out your limitations?”
“What the hell!” I pulled my hand free, furious. “That’s not cool, Blake. What’s next? Trying to stop a moving vehicle by standing in front of it, but whoops, I can’t do that and now I’m dead?”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, Onyx

“If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“Our enemies are Medes and Persians, men who for centuries have lived soft and luxurious lives; we of Macedon for generations past have been trained in the hard school of danger and war. Above all, we are free men, and they are slaves. There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service — but how different is their cause from ours! They will be fighting for pay — and not much of at that; we, on the contrary, shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be in it. As for our foreign troops — Thracians, Paeonians, Illyrians, Agrianes — they are the best and stoutest soldiers in Europe, and they will find as their opponents the slackest and softest of the tribes of Asia. And what, finally, of the two men in supreme command? You have Alexander, they — Darius!”
― Alexander the Great

“Selfishly, perhaps, Catti-brie had determined that the assassin was her own business. He had unnerved her, had stripped away years of training and discipline and reduced her to the quivering semblance of a frightened child. But she was a young woman now, no more a girl. She had to personally respond to that emotional humiliation, or the scars from it would haunt her to her grave, forever paralyzing her along her path to discover her true potential in life.”
― R.A. Salvatore, Streams of Silver

“People skills are useless with cats, because cats are immune to training, and do whatever they decide in any situation... And most importantly they aren’t human.”
― Will Advise, Nothing is here...

“How's that training coming along, Griff? Good old Max says you're a natural."

Turner frowned. Any time a white man asked you about yourself, they were about to fuck you over.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys