Your favourite Post-1900 quote

[oldironside]

It could be something funny...

... something motiviational...

... something that looks ridiculous in hindsight...

... or something illuminating...

... but what's your favourite post-1900 quote?

 

[oldironside]

No takers? Then I'll close this thread with LBJ's comment about firing J Edgar Hoover.

"I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in."

 

[Cryhavoc101]

ABC - obviously

"It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition."

Andrew Browne Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, KT, GCB, OM, DSO & Two Bars - or - ABC

 

[fastmongrel]

Lady Astor to Winston Churchill

If you were my husband I would put poison in your tea.

Madam if you were my wife I would drink it.

 

[fscott]

What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving.
Jeane Kirkpatrick

 

[oldironside]

Prince Phiip to Jomo Kenyatta at Kenya's independence ceremony: "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

 

[dissentcontinues]

I'm in California dealing with megadrought and my stuff getting stolen and my family and ex girlfriend from NJ giving me a hard time. So, The Grapes of Wrath has new meaning for me.

"...And in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."

-John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

 

[dave_r_gilbert]

As WW1 started.

"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time"
Supposedly said by Sir Edward Grey, UK foreign secretary, on 3rd August 1914.

 

[mlp]

"The final bastion of a democracy exists within the united strength of enlightened citizens."

 

[Mikestone8]

Ribbentrop to Churchill "And remember, in the next war the Italians will be on our side".


Churchill "Well, that's only fair. We had them last time".

 

[Eivind]

Churchill: We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

 

[oldironside]

It's nice to see some interesting contributions here. I thought this thread was going to die an anonymous death.

A great example of an innocent man making himself look like an incompetent. Kermit E. Tyler, who was in charge of the Pearl Harbor Intercept Station. When one of the radar operators told him their was a blip heading inbound, he said:

"Well, don't worry about it."

To be fair, he was perfectly justified to say what he did. He had minimal training, no one had transmitted any sense of urgency to him, and they were expecting an inbound flight of B-17s.

 

[New Cleo Genesis]

"A generation which ignores history has no past and no future."

From Time Enough to Love by Robert Heinlein

 

[Kung Fucious]

"Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." - FDR

It's almost certainly apocryphal, but it's such a good quote, and so succinctly sums up post-WW2 American foreign policy that it's just too good to pass up.

 

[oldironside]

"Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." - FDR

It's almost certainly apocraphyl, but it's such a good quote, and so succinctly sums up post-WW2 American foreign policy that it's just too good to pass up.

Well, within the context of the thread, apocraphyl is okay. It says a lot about the situation, so I think a good punchy quote is worth a thousand words.

 

[Karelian]

 

[oldironside]

Now, if we're going for quotes exhibiting stupidity, that could be a whole new thread. GWB has several websites of his own.

 

[Karelian]

Now, if we're going for quotes exhibiting stupidity, that could be a whole new thread. GWB has several websites of his own.

I think it's a quote filled with hidden and subtle geopolitical wisdom - or alternatively it just sums up the way de Gaulle so often resembled Wilhelm II in his public statements.

 

[Hugo Strange]

Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!
- Golda Meir

 

[Just Leo]

"I Shall Return" Douglas MacArthur.

"We'll be right back." Merv Griffin.

"I'm back." Ahnold

"Doobeedoobeedoo." Frank Sinatra.