Honorable Defeat Quotes & Sayings

To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion ... It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could. — Walter Cronkite

My friends ... today, we are not Fey, Celierian, or dahl'reisen, but brothers, united and strong, each of us honorable and worthy warriors of Light. We are the steel no enemy can shatter. We are the magic no Dark power can defeat. We are the rock upon which evil breaks like waves. We are warriors of honor, champions of Light. — C.L. Wilson

An honorable defeat is better than a dishonorable victory. — Millard Fillmore

Fight them with your faith in God, fight them in defense of every free honorable woman and every innocent child, and in defense of the values of manhood and the military honor ... Fight them because with their defeat you will be at the last entrance of the conquest of all conquests. The war will end with ... dignity, glory, and triumph for your people, army, and nation. — Saddam Hussein

If I survived at all, it would be a triumph. If I swam, it would be a miracle. As I unlocked my door, I thought of my mother putting her age back fifteen years and going into the merchant marines. I had to try. If I ended in defeat, at least I would be trying. Trying to overcome was black people's honorable tradition. — Maya Angelou

Hope looks for unqualified success; but Faith counts certainly on failure, and takes honorable defeat to be a form of victory. — Robert Louis Stevenson

A victory which is not honorable is nothing but a defeat! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The struggle is always worthwhile, if the end be worthwhile and the means honorable; foreknowledge of defeat is not sufficient reason to withdraw from the contest. — Steven Brust