Quotes & Sayings About Mercenaries

I was always a sports nut but I've lost interest now in whether one bunch of mercenaries in north London is going to beat another bunch of mercenaries from west London. — John Cleese

Air traffic control is going to have a steamy old fit on your dime, boy.
They can get in line behind the police, the people whose cars we trashed, the Empire of Ob'enn, the Partnership Collective, and the Wormgate Corporation. Oh, and I think maybe some dark matter beasties from Andromeda.
You "think maybe"?
-General Tagon & Captain Andreyasn — Howard Tayler

Once you start thinking about it in a mercenary frame of mind, then you're finished. You're a joke, because there are too many mercenaries out there already. — Tommy Shaw

Thousands of mercenaries, who have trained in camps on the territory of Chechnya as well as come in from abroad, are actually preparing to impose extremist ideas on the whole world. — Boris Yeltsin

Deveels are some of the meanest characters you'd ever not want to tangle with. They're some of the most feared and respected characters in the dimensions."
"Are they warriors? Mercenaries?"
Aahz shook his head.
"Worse!" he answered. "They're merchants. — Robert Asprin

The world's deadliest mercenaries choose to serve you, the whispers say, because they have yet to meet me. — Marie Lu

New orders: Make sure everybody who doesn't want to live here is aboard in five minutes. We are leaving.
-Captain Kevyn Andreyasn — Howard Tayler

Most of the institutions that come in to offer help after disaster don't have the resources to provide concrete help. . . . Donor communities invest billions funding peace talks and disarmament. Then they stop. The most important part of postwar help is missing: providing basic social services to people. Not having those resources might have been a reason men went to war in the first place; they crossed a border and joined an armed group because they didn't have jobs. In Liberia right now, there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed young people, and they're ready-made mercenaries for wars in West Africa. You'd think the international community would be sensible enough to know they should work to change this. But they aren't. — Leymah Gbowee

When an entire segment of the world is burned and reduced to a lawless battleground for thugs and mercenaries, a land where government does not exist, where the slate of history is being wiped out and hope has drowned in gallons of innocent blood, the only respite comes in the form of the open seas and what lies beyond the horizon. So ships are boarded and pain is tolerated just a little while longer. — Aysha Taryam

Khaled, my first teacher, was the kind of man who carried his past in the temple fires of his eyes, and fed the flames with pieces of his broken heart. I've known men like Khaled in prisons, on battlefields, and in the dens where smugglers, mercenaries, and other exiles meet. They all have certain characteristics in common. They're tough, because there's a kind of toughness that's found in the worst sorrow. They're honest, because the truth of what happened to them won't let them lie. They're angry, because they can't forget the past or forgive it. And they're lonely. Most of us pretend, with greater or lesser success, that the minute we live in is something we can share. But the past for every one of us is a desert island; and those like Khaled, who find themselves marooned there, are always alone. — Gregory David Roberts

Maxim 2:
A sergeant in motion outranks a lieutenant who doesn't know what's going on.
-The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries — Howard Tayler

The Bird swooped down out of nowhere in 1976, stole the game of baseball away from the mercenaries, who considered it merely business, and gave it back to the fans. — Doug Wilson

Rudeness is not cool. Defeating tiny guys is not cool. Close-following is not cool. Young is cool. Risk taking is cool. Winning is cool. Polite is cool. Defeating bigger, unsympathetic guys is cool. Inventing is cool. Explorers are cool. Conquerors are not cool. Obsessing over competitors is not cool. Empowering others is cool. Capturing all the value only for the company is not cool. Leadership is cool. Conviction is cool. Straightforwardness is cool. Pandering to the crowd is not cool. Hypocrisy is not cool. Authenticity is cool. Thinking big is cool. The unexpected is cool. Missionaries are cool. Mercenaries are not cool. — Brad Stone

Being a mercenary, though ... Hey, we just go wherever there's a mixture of money and trouble, and everyone in the galaxy is a potential customer.
Even the people you're paid to shoot at?
Well, yeah. There are customers we serve, and customers we service.
-Captain Kevyn Andreyasn & General Tagon — Howard Tayler

We hear the term independent contractors in Iraq. Independent contractors? Mercenaries! — Studs Terkel

The Iraq war is a huge subject and there have been many films about it. But it was when the private contractors started taking over and taking responsibilities from the regular army, which hides the war. You have these private armies of mercenaries acting with immunity for their actions, the worst of which was the Blackwater case where they killed 17 Iraqi civilians and the guys who did it just went home. We [screenwriter Paul Laverty and Loach] felt this deserved a story. — Ken Loach

I am not talking about the American people and the British people, I am talking about those mercenaries ... They have started throwing those pencils, but they are not pencils, they are booby traps to kill the children. — Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

During the battle, Spartacus himself tried with frenzied
determination, the symbolism of which is obvious, to reach Crassus, who was commanding the Roman
legions. He wanted to perish, but in single combat with the man who symbolized, at that moment, every
Roman master; it was his dearest wish to die, but in absolute equality. He did not reach Crassus:
principles wage war at a distance and the Roman general kept himself apart. Spartacus died, as he wished,
but at the hands of mercenaries, slaves like himself, who killed their own freedom with his. In revenge for
the one crucified citizen, Crassus crucified thousands of slaves. The six thousand crosses which, after
such a just rebellion, staked out the road from Capua to Rome demonstrated to the servile crowd that
there is no equality in the world of power and that the masters calculate, at a usurious rate, the price of
their own blood. — Albert Camus

It is only mercenaries who expect to be paid by the day. — Teresa Of Avila

Call them pros, call them mercenaries - but in fact they are just grown - up kids who have learned on the frozen creek or flooded corner lot that hockey is the greatest thrill of all. — Lester Patrick

When they learned what orders they were to execute, they fell into a panic. They were concerned about releasing more than three thousand people from prisons, internment camps and exile. House arrest was to be withdrawn from more than a hundred. 'No, it didn't only apply to bandits, common criminals and hired mercenaries. The pardons were mostly for dissidents. Among the pardoned were henchmen of the deposed King Rhyd and people of the usurper Idi, their virulent partisans. And not only those who had supported in word: most were in prison for sabotage, assassination attempts and armed revolts. The minister of internal affairs was horrified and papa extremely worried. 'While — Andrzej Sapkowski

Fate is a comfortable mistress, Wes, if you accept her demands." Fate, the mistress that four years ago had put him the hands of mercenaries who turned him over to the British to be tortured.
"Listen to the monk teaching me about mistresses." Wesley chuckled.

-Vitor & Wesley — Katharine Ashe

I make no pretensions to 'objectivity,' a fraudulent concept in an era of industrialized and politicized science in which intellectual mercenaries too often serve power and greed, the ambitions of competing nation-states, or the requirements of commerce. — Hazel Henderson

That's how you tell a merc is dead; he just stops collecting paychecks. — Mercedes Lackey

Good teams have a compelling product vision that they pursue with a missionary-like passion. Bad teams are mercenaries. — Jeff Patton

Speechless and very nearly panting, she fell back against the wall with a thump, knowing that if she lived to be ninety, she would still carry the searing mark of that kiss on her soul.
"At last," he murmured. "A way to shut you up." Christovao Santos (Chris), Sanctuary — Sharon K. Garner

It's a violent galaxy filled with cutthroat pirates, cyber-mercenaries and star messiahs. If peace comes, it will have to steal in like a thief. — Mitch Michaelson

Looters become looted, while time and tide make us mercenaries all. — Patrick Rothfuss

Those who ran away are now outside the distant perimeter wall of the airport. Now they're outside the wall and the heroic Republican Guard is now in control of the whole area of Saddam International Airport. So where are those villainous louts, those mercenaries? — Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

Hamilcar maneuvered 40,000 of the rebels into a defile and blocked all exits so well that they began to starve. They ate their remaining captives, then their slaves; at last they sent Spendius to beg for peace. Hamilcar crucified Spendius and had hundreds of prisoners trampled to death under elephants' feet. The mercenaries tried to fight their way out, but were cut to pieces. Matho was captured and was made to run through the streets of Carthage while the citizens beat him with thongs and tortured him till he died.18 — Will Durant

I don't believe in prolonging agonies," said Oser. "Rather than watch you enspell the rest of my fleet man by man - while I still possess a fleet to offer - I understand the Dendarii Mercenaries are looking for recruits." It — Lois McMaster Bujold

No political politicians on the board and stop sub-contracting anyway, which means getting out of Iraq. If anything needs to be policed, it needs to be done through a proper international body ... not through us sub-contracting teams of mercenaries. — Ken Loach

Jane and Elizabeth tried to explain that all five of them were capable of fending for themselves; that they could make tolerable fortunes as bodyguards, assassins, or mercenaries if need be. — Seth Grahame-Smith

Sacred Bands and elite squadrons aren't what the mercenaries' guild is about. Field them at your peril. — Janet Morris

By not burning their poppy fields to the ground but instead maintaining a security umbrella that international development agencies could safely work under as they improved these ordinary people's lives, we would win their 'hearts and minds' in the classic manifestation of a successful counter-insutgency operation.
[...]
Maybe our Western values world somebe instilled in these people. But in country where the average life expectancy was 42 and with the price of that life coming in contrasting cheap at $10 plus the bonus of martyrdom, or alien values might just as equally not be snapped up. — Jake Wood

Of course, the Genshwin are almost as enigmatic as our hero himself: they were some of the last Majiski, those who had managed to survive by taking up refuge in an underground fortress beneath Oblakgrad. Most of them were young, the children of those who had perished in the purges, too young to remember the times before the Wall. They were a secret, hidden from the Demons' sight. They were assassins and spies, thieves and mercenaries - masters of shadow and steel.
-The Penitent God — S.G. Night

What on earth is that?"
"My wedding crown."
"You're getting married?" Bran asked and he looked even more amused than Mithala, as if he had not had this much fun in a long, long time. Shea debated hitting him.
"Not if I can help it," she said, "I don't think Rook would approve the groom."
Rook turned to give her a stern look. "If he lives under the water, I most certainly will not. I'm not prejudiced, normaly, but I don't wish to have a fish as a son-in-law. It would ruin the holidays, what with him dripping water al over the floor." There was a moment of startled silence, then Bran, Mithala, and Shea burst into laughter. Galen was glaring at them al. "Fools, this is not the time for jest."
Bran choked back his laughter for a moment."Sir elf, if now is not the time, then there will never be one; running over dry land from the wrath of fishes is nothing but a jest."
"Mercenaries," Galen spat with disgust, leaping onto his mare. — Kaiya Hart

An Emperor confides in national soldiers, not in mercenaries. — Napoleon Bonaparte

The doer and the thinker, no allowances for the other, as the failing light illuminates the mercenaries creed. — Jethro Tull

I didn't know they'd do this to you. (Syd)
It's okay, Syd. Who could have imagined that a man who heads up a company of paid assassins and mercenaries would be psychotic? (Steele) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

There were a number of powerful factions within Adro: the Wings of Adom mercenaries, the royal cabal, the Mountainwatch, and the great noble families. — Brian McClellan

A state that privatizes most of its functions will inevitably defend itself by employing its own people as mercenaries — Philip Bobbitt

During his time with the French army, years before, one of the sergeants had explained to the younger mercenaries the trick of falling asleep the night before a battle. Make yourself comfortable, examine your conscience, and make a good Act of Contrition. Father Hugo says that in time of war, even if there is no priest to shrive you, your sins can be forgiven this way. Since you cannot commit sins while asleep
not even you, Simenon!
you will awake in a state of grace, ready to fall on the bastards. And with nothing to look forward to but victory or heaven
how can you be afraid. — Diana Gabaldon

Oh, that's great. That way, when things have quieted down, and we come up for air, or money, or re-supply, we'll get a nice explosive package from him that says "so nice to see you again" in a way that only multi-megaton yields can. — Howard Tayler

She knew now why mercenaries unnerved her, not only because they were dangerous in themselves but because they were outside the only system on which her society, real society, was built, whereby everybody owed duty to somebody under feudal law, just as her tenants, free and unfree; her knights; and her manor holders had to pay her in various taxes and service, just as she, their tenant in chief, had to render taxes and service to the ultimate earthly authority, the king. Mercenaries were unattached from the only mechanism that gave order to the world; they floated free of all responsibility except to those who paid them, like disgusting flies sucking at a sweetness to which they had not contributed. That was why — Ariana Franklin

Please. Put the gun down and we'll talk. A beautiful woman holding a small cannon plays hell with my concentration. Christovao (Chris) Santos, Sanctuary — Sharon K. Garner

South Africa, with US support, after the fall of the Portuguese empire, invaded Angola and Mozambique to establish their own puppet regime there. They were trying to protect Namibia, to protect apartheid, and nobody did much about it; but the Cubans sent forces, and furthermore they sent black soldiers and they defeated a white mercenary army, which not only rescued Angola but it sent a shock throughout the continent-it was a psychic shock-white mercenaries were purported to be invincible, and a black army defeated them and sent them back fleeing into South Africa. — Noam Chomsky

Every civilization carries the seeds of its own destruction, and the same cycle shows in them all. The Republic is born, flourishes, decays into plutocracy, and is captured by the shoemaker whom the mercenaries and millionaires make into a king. The people invent their oppressors, and the oppressors serve the function for which they are invented. — Mark Twain

Think for yourselves for a change. You've been pedlars: go and be merchants. You've been mercenaries: go and find something of your own to defend. You've finished teething and there's the world: crack it open if you can. — Dorothy Dunnett

There are customers we serve, and customers we service.
-Captain Andreyasn — Howard Tayler

What is that?"

Something bobbed on the surface, a piece of driftwood. And then another. And another. The boards floated past in broken shards, the edges burned. An unpleasant chill went through Alucard.

The Ghost was sailing through the remains of a ship.

"That," said Alucard, "is the work of Sea Serpents."

Lila's eyes widened. "Please tell me you're talking about mercenaries and not giant ship-eating snakes."

Alucard raised a brow. "Giant ship-eating snakes? Really?"

"What?" she challenged. "How am I supposed to know where to draw the line in this world?"

"You can draw it well before giant ship-eating snakes... — V.E Schwab

Japanese people today think of money, just money: Where is our national spirit today? The Jieitai must be the soul of Japan. ... The nation has no spiritual foundation. That is why you don't agree with me. You will just be American mercenaries. There you are in your tiny world. You do nothing for Japan. ... I salute the Emperor. Long live the emperor! — Yukio Mishima

Missionaries have righteous goals and are trying to make the world a better place. Mercenaries are out for money and power and will run over anyone who gets in the way. — Brad Stone

Kari laughed when she heard Meryn. "Now I that have minions and mercenaries, I can take over the world."
Aiden looked down at his mate, a terrified look on his face. — Alanea Alder

They opposed brute force to reason and philosophy, and battalions of foreign mercenaries to ideas. As if ideas were to be impaled on bayonets! — Rafael Sabatini

Despite the headmaster's romantic claims that the origin of the cravat went back to the silk fascalia worn by Roman orators to warm their vocal cords, Langdon knew that, etymologically, "cravat" actually derived from a ruthless band of Croat mercenaries who donned knotted neckerchiefs before they stormed into battle. To this day, this ancient battle garb was donned by modern office warriors hoping to intimidate their enemies in daily boardroom battles. — Dan Brown

Alban finally realized why Pilate was so concerned about revolution. The man ruled this province with one irregular legion, mostly mercenaries, few fully trained. Against him stood a people who were united only by prayer. But united with a mysterious bond totally foreign to any Roman Alban knew. Roman — Janette Oke

The word 'hate' is a very carefully chosen word. There's got to be a real sense of revulsion and disgust. People are looking for someone to blame, someone who's the cause of their problems, and it should be the gun industry. These guys are the living embodiment of the slogan, 'Guns don't kill people-people kill people'. They're complete mercenaries. — Josh Sugarmann

Civilians who volunteer generally wish to escape, not to share, privatizations worse than their own. — Barbara W. Tuchman

You - " Mr Bellstrode began, and then leaning forward and sinking his voice, "You would kill for money?"
"Is there any other reason to? Well, I suppose there is revenge, but that, you know, never makes one feel as well as it should when it is all said and done. Money is a much better reward than retribution. Something substantial by way of compensation for emotional wrongs is much the best cure for an injured spirit. I do provide fatal retaliation for nothing when it is deserved, but as you are neither a poor helpless wretch nor the victim of national injustice, full payment is expected. — Michelle Franklin

[Kendra] also referred to Tizoc Theron, one of the most powerful mercenaries in all of vampiric existence, as her "Tizzy". The Inquisition was "a dreadful inconvenience," World War II was "a little spat" and the fall of Midnight, the vampiric empire that had reigned for centurie, was "an unfortunate event. — Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

It occurs to me that just as the Carthaginians hired mercenaries to do their fighting for them, we Americans being in mercenaries to do our hard and humble work. I hope we may not be overwhelmed one day by peoples not too proud or too lazy or too soft to bend to the earth and pick up the things we eat. — John Steinbeck

The idea of a king is to be a protector of the rich against unjust treatment, of the people against insult and oppression. Whereas a tyrant, as has often been repeated, has no regard to any public interest, except as conducive to his private ends; his aim is pleasure, the aim of a king, honor. Wherefore also in their desires they differ; the tyrant is desirous of riches, the king, of what brings honor. And the guards of a king are citizens, but of a tyrant mercenaries. — Aristotle.

Every predecessor has used mercenaries, often drawn from the country that they're attacking, like England ran India with Indian mercenaries. You take them from one place and send them to kill people in the other place. That's the standard way to run imperial wars. — Noam Chomsky

I can hardly thinke there was any scared into Heaven; they go the surest way to Heaven who would serve God without a Hell; other Mercenaries, that crouch unto Him in feare of Hell, though they terme themselves servants, are indeed but the slaves of the Almighty. — Thomas Browne

We'd itch the vermin feasting on our flesh and share the day's many rumors:
The King had declared peace.
No, the King was sending German and Russian mercenaries to destroy us.
A ball of fire as big as a man's head fell from heaven to Hatboro - a good omen. But there'd been an earthquake near York just as a cat gave birth to puppies, which meant the worst. — Laurie Halse Anderson

Shakespeare's enduring tragedy did its part to further the goals of the Mercenaries - glamorizing death, making dying for love seem the most noble act of all, though nothing could be further from the truth. Taking an innocent life - in a misguided attempt to prove love or for any other reason - is a useless waste. — Stacey Jay

In peace one is despoiled by the mercenaries, in war by one's enemies. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay. — A.E. Housman

the best leaders tend to be missionaries rather than mercenaries. — Alex Ferguson

In the Bible, God uses brothel owners, pagan kings, murderers and mercenaries as instruments of good; at one point God even speaks to a guy named Balaam through his donkey. — Shane Claiborne

These mercenaries and hirelings kidnapped civilians in the Al-Faw Peninsula so that they might claim that they captured Iraqi soldiers. — Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

The sunrise was the colour of bad blood. It leaked out of the east and stained the dark sky red, marked the scraps of the cloud with stolen gold. Underneath it the road twisted up the mountainside towards the fortress of Fontezarmo - a cluster of sharp towers, ash-black again the wounded heavens. The sunrise was red, black and gold.
The colours of their profession. — Joe Abercrombie

We will push those crooks, those mercenaries back into the swamp. — Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious, and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy. — Niccolo Machiavelli

My Vocabularies vary, its so exclusionary You'll find my baby pictures in modern dictionaries Next to mighty mercenaries, and visual visionaries — Andre Nickatina

Hi. I'm here to enlist.
You can't. You aren't human.
You see, little fella, we don't do sociological stuff like "interspeciated workplaces." We're a crack company of space mercenaries. We do "hurting people" and "breaking things."
Sounds like my kind of fun.
-Schlock & Lieutenant Der Trihs — Howard Tayler

She didn't even know that he'd turned the shed in the back into a detention cell. Now that he thought about it, he really had made this house into a home. He just needed Charlie to pick out shit like curtains. Should he put curtains in his detention cell?
Blake, Lexi (2013-10-01). Love and Let Die (Masters and Mercenaries) (Kindle Locations 3156-3158). DLZ Entertainment, LLC. Kindle Edition. — Lexi Blake

Even the king's Erkynguard might have wished to be elsewhere, rather than here on this killing ground where duty brought them and loyalty prisoned them. Only the mercenaries were here by choice. To Simon, the minds of men who would come to this of their own will were suddenly as incomprehensible as the thoughts of spiders or lizards - less so, even, for the small creatures of the earth almost always fled from danger. These were madmen, Simon realized, and that was the direst problem of the world: that madmen should be strong and unafraid, so that they could force their will on the weak and peace-loving. If God allowed such madness to be, Simon could not help thinking, then He was an old god who had lost His grip. — Tad Williams

In other words if a man is armed, then one pretty much has to take his opinions into account. One can see how this worked at its starkest in Xenophon's Anabasis, which tells the story of an army of Greek mercenaries who suddenly find themselves leaderless and lost in the middle of Persia. They elect new officers, and then hold a collective vote to decide what to do next. In a case like this, even if the vote was 60/40, everyone could see the balance of forces and what would happen if things actually came to blows. Every vote was, in a real sense, a conquest. — David Graeber

Football spectators appreciate a bit of loyalty, and we're seeing that less and less. There are echelons of football, as in society, where some players are clearly mercenaries. I regret in a way that somehow the local identification, the local bonding between the community and its football team has been commercialised to such an extent. — Vincent Nichols

Keep fighting, you daughters and sons of goats!" Birgitte yelled, loosing arrows at the mercenaries. "I might be dead, but I'm still your bloody commander, and you will obey orders! — Robert Jordan

You really want a company full of missionaries, not mercenaries. — Sam Altman

Are you done briefing the company yet?"
"We, um ... Haven't gotten through the introductions yet."
"Allow me: Time-traveling Kevyn Andreyasn, this is the mercenary company "Tagon's Toughs."
"Company, this is the time-traveling Kevyn Andreyasn, who will have become your captain thirty-two hours from now, as of seven weeks ago.
Now, quick. Let's go save the galaxy while they're confused. — Howard Tayler

Government is a system of morality developed by philosophers and refined by mercenaries. — Alex Stein

Commerce has changed the ethics of citizenship and the incentives for national service. America now buys private contractors - we used to call them mercenaries - to do the country's fighting. — Michael Ignatieff

These mercenaries, I swear by God, those who are still in Washington, they have sent their troops to be burned. — Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf