The Rising Sun Quotes

“and if any conclusion was reached, it was that there are no simple lessons in history, that it is human nature that repeats itself, not history.”
― John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“It is easier to start a war than end one.”
― John Willard Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“I have done my utmost to let the events speak for themselves, and if any conclusion was reached, it was that there are no simple lessons in history, that it is human nature that repeats itself, not history. We often learn more about the past from the present, in fact, than the reverse.”
― John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline & Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-45

“human nature that repeats itself, not history”
― John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“The main barrier between East and West today is that the white man is not willing to give up his superiority and the colored man is no longer willing to endure his inferiority.… The white man is a century behind the colored man. The white man is still thinking in terms of colonies and colonial government. The colored man knows that colonies and colonial-mindedness are anachronisms. The colonial way of life is over, whether the white man knows it or not, and all that remains is to kick off the shell of the chrysalis. The man of Asia today is not a colonial and he has made up his mind he will never be a colonial again.”
― John Willard Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“Long ago Napoleon had sounded the warning that China was but a sleeping giant: “Let him sleep! For when he wakes he will move the world.”
― John Willard Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“The main barrier between East and West today is that the white man is not willing to give up his superiority and the colored man is no longer willing to endure his inferiority.… The white man is a century behind the colored man. The white man is still thinking in terms of colonies and colonial government. The colored man knows that colonies and colonial-mindedness are anachronisms.”
― John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“The Japanese were again committed to a useless fight to the death.”
― John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline & Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-45

“Kusaka was shaken by the realization that the American was as determined as any samurai. He silently prayed for him.”
― John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline & Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-45

“How could a nation rich in resources and land, and free from fear of attack, understand the position of a tiny, crowded island empire with almost no natural resources, which was constantly in danger of attack from a ruthless neighbor, the Soviet Union? America herself had, moreover, contributed to the atmosphere of hate and distrust by excluding the Japanese from immigration and, in effect, flaunting a racial and color prejudice that justifiably infuriated the proud Nipponese.”
― John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline & Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-45

“The accelerating Japanese success was unforeseen on both sides. A captured British Engineer officer told Colonel Tsuji he had expected the defenses in northern Malaya to hold out for at least three months. “As the Japanese Army had not beaten the weak Chinese Army after four years’ fighting in China we did not consider it a very formidable enemy.”
― John Willard Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“Lieutenant Moore and his two companions were trying to give chase. They found to their amazement that the Zeros were faster and more maneuverable, climbing at an astounding rate. They had been assured there was no such thing as a good Japanese fighter plane, although exact data on these Zeros had been sent to the War Department by the brilliant and unorthodox Colonel Claire Chennault in the fall of 1940. The chief of the Flying Tigers had also elaborated in detail on ways whereby the heavier P-40 should be able to shoot down the faster Zero, but this information, which could have saved the lives of bewildered American pilots dying that moment, had been filed away. Chennault was too much of a maverick to be taken seriously by his superiors.”
― John Willard Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“What a difference a little food makes! Kamiko thought as he finished a piece of chocolate. They could tolerate their wounds but the lack of food had sapped their morale. If we could eat as much as the Americans, we’d still be up on the ridge fighting, he mused. Victory in battle was simply a case of supply. How could Japan win against such a rich and powerful foe?”
― John Willard Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“Guadalcanal already had a new name—Starvation Island. Ga, the first syllable of Gadarukanaru, means among other things “hunger.”
― John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“All the seas, everywhere, are brothers one to another Why then do the winds and waves of strife rage so violently through the world?”
― John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“America’s greatest mistake in World War II, I believe, was in failing to recognize that she was fighting two different kinds of war simultaneously: one in Europe against another Western people and philosophy, Nazism, and one in Asia which was not only a struggle against an aggressive nation fighting for survival as a modern power but an ideological contest against an entire continent. Millions of Orientals saw Japan’s battle as their own, as a confrontation of race and color; they also saw in Japan’s victories their own liberation from Western domination.”
― John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“Konoye”
― John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“Among the Americans who served on Iwo Island,” Nimitz later wrote, “uncommon valor was a common virtue.” Deep”
― John Willard Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

“Although “splendid” is listed in dictionaries as one translation for kekko, conversationally in this context it merely means “agreement without accent”—that is, “I’ll go along with that.”
― John Willard Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945