Territory War Quotes & Sayings

There are millions of peaceful Muslims across the world, in countries like India, where there is not the problems we are seeing in nations that are controlled - have territory controlled by Al Qaida or ISIS, and we should direct at the problem, focus on the problem, and defeat radical Islamic terrorism. It's not a war on a faith; it's a war on a political and theocratic ideology that seeks to murder us. — Ted Cruz

A nation may be said to consist of its territory, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only part which is of certain durability. — Abraham Lincoln

Because the US has control of the sea. Because the US has built up its wealth. Because the US is the only country in the world really not to have a war fought on its territory since the time of the Civil War ... Therefore we can afford mistakes that would kill other countries. And therefore we can take risks that they can't ... the core answer to why the United States is like this is we didn't fight World War I and World War II and the Cold War here. — George Friedman

Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel. — Yasser Arafat

One Soviet general, looking at a map of the territory Russia had acquired on the Karelian Isthmus, is said to have remarked: "We have won just about enough ground to bury our dead — William R. Trotter

Listen: I'm not going to tell you what to do. We cannot make decisions for you. We came to help, but we do not want to interfere. We gave you a gift, yours to do with as you will. But you've heard all that before. We're happy to talk. To answer questions about why we don't stop war and suffering, cure cancer, end poverty, point the way to heaven or point out that there is no heaven. Ask us anything. We don't mind. We try our best to be candid, but there is an inevitable degree of mutual incomprehension. Because your qualia aren't our qualia. Because we're running models of who you think you are and what you think you know, but they're just models. Because the map isn't the territory. Because we aren't gods. We aren't even close. You know? At best, we're pipers at the gates of dawn. Who have come to this little blue planet to help. — Paul McAuley

(He) looked directly into his own eyes, as though his eyes were neutral territory, a no man's land in a private war against narcissism. — J.D. Salinger

There has never been a military operation remotely approaching the scale and the complexity of D-Day. It involved 176,000 troops, more than 12,000 airplanes, almost 10,000 ships, boats, landing craft, frigates, sloops, and other special combat vessels
all involved in a surprise attack on the heavily fortified north coast of France, to secure a beachhead in the heart of enemy-held territory so that the march to Germany and victory could begin. It was daring, risky, confusing, bloody, and ultimately glorious [p.25] — Tom Brokaw

Wars are not fought for territory, but for words. Man's deadliest weapon is language. He is as susceptible to being hypnotized by slogans as he is to infectious diseases. And where there is an epidemic, the group-mind takes over. — Arthur Koestler

The paradox is that, by children taking shortcuts through computer games, through fantasies, through movies that load on all the emotional stimulation of encountering life in a stylized way - all of this is the equivalent of mainlining of paleolithic emotions, emotions about combat, about personal success, about overcoming monsters, about making powerful friendships, about winning wars and entering new territory. — E. O. Wilson

I used to think it was possible for an artist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory. — Don DeLillo

With snow came the kites, once the rulers of Kabul's winter skies, now timid trespassers in territory claimed by streaking rockets and fighter jets. — Khaled Hosseini

So it comes about that the war [World War I] seems, to us, to have been fought less over territory than the way it would be remembered, that the war's true subject is remembrance. Indeed the whole war - which was being remembered even as it was fought, whose fallen were being remembered before they fell - seems not so much to be tinted by retrospect as to have been fought retrospectively. — Geoff Dyer

We do not keep security establishments merely to defend property or territory or rights abroad or at sea. We keep the security forces to defend a way of life. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Naasir was strong and fast and highly intelligent, but he was currently trapped in the heart of enemy territory, and that enemy did not fight according to any known rules of war. — Nalini Singh

I said that one of the causes, and the one that has created more excitement and dissatisfaction than any other, is, that the Government will not hereafter, and when it is necessary, interpose to protect slaves as property in the Territories; and I asked the Senator if he would abandon his squatter-sovereignty notions and agree to protect slaves as all other property? — Louis Wigfall

There will always be another war, Gillia." He allowed his cynicism to seep through. "Do you know why? Because there will always be bigots and cowards and power-mad devils in positions of omnipotence. Look around you. There has been war here since time began. It's nature. Animals kill each other for survival, for territory ... and for the taste of blood in their mouths. Man is no different. — V.S. Carnes

Drugs, sex, Satan, and power, Eve mused. A religious war? Hadn't humans fought and died for beliefs since the dawn of time? Animals fought for territory; people fought for territory as well. And for gain, for passion, for beliefs. For the hell of it. — J.D. Robb

Luxembourg was and still is today a crossroads, the place where Germany meets the rest of Europe. The country lost part of its territory to Belgium in the 1800s, and during World Wars I and II the German military overran it. Very few people have visited Luxembourg - when I went there and looked at it, I said, my God, it's built on a rock. And within the rock they had a castle, and within the city there's a network of tunnels so the residents could move around and defend themselves. That was of great interest to me. — I.M. Pei

Deep in the heart of the hot, wet African rainforest, there lives a tribe of peacemakers who share a multiplicity of pleasures and make a very special kind of love. South of the sprawling Congo River, in the midst of war-ravaged territory, some 2,000 miles from the arid Ethiopian desert where the oldest human fossils have been found, lies this lush and steamy jungle paradise, the only natural habitat of the bonobo. — Susan Block

We are already engaged in World War III. It is a war against nature, and it is simply no contest. As a result, the threat from the skies is no longer missiles but ozone-layer depletion and global warming. Leaders who assert they will not concede one square meter of national territory to an invader should think of the hundreds of square kilometers of topsoil eroded from their countries each year. — Norman Myers

With psychedelics, if you're fortunate and break through, you understand what is truly of value in life. Material, power, dominance, and territory have no value. People wouldn't fight wars, and the whole system we have currently would fall apart. People would become peaceful, loving citizens, not robots marching around in the dark with all their lights off. — Gary Fisher

We labored to understand before we learned how dear knowledge had become, that in the war between nations to dominate so much new territory, ideas had transmuted into a new currency recognizable to all and immediately transferable. Intellectual property rights now serve as an ephemeral gold, weightless and invisible, priceless artifacts one can slip into the folds of his or her brain and smuggle anywhere, undetected. — Hugh Howey

Women as a class have never subjugated another group; we have never marched off to wars of conquest in the name of the fatherland. We have never been involved in a decision to annex the territory of a neighboring country, or to fight for foreign markets on distant shores. These are the games men play, not us. We want to be neither oppressors nor oppressed. The women's revolution is the final revolution of them all. — Susan Brownmiller

What Secretary Ash Carter is looking at is the constant pressure that Russia's putting on our European allies. The way that Russia is trying to move the boundaries of the post-World War II Europe. The way that he is trying to set European countries against one another, seizing territory, holding it in Crimea. Beginning to explore whether they could make some inroads in the Baltics. — Hillary Clinton

It occurs to me how close happiness and sadness are. So closely knitted together. Such a thin line, a thread-like divide that in the midst of emotions, it trembles, blurring the territory of exact opposites ... how quickly a moment of love was snapped away to a moment of hate ... Of how love and war stand upon the very same foundations. How, in my darkest moments, my most fearful times, when faced, became my bravest. When feeling at your weakest you end up showing more strength, when at your lowest are suddenly lifted above higher than you've ever been. They all border one another, the opposites, and how we can be altered. Despair can be altered by one simple smile offered by a stranger; confidence can become fear by the arrival of one uneasy presence. ... How similar emotions are. — Cecelia Ahern

Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe, together with the greater part of the [German] Reich. All over this territory, which would be of an enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend. — Joseph Goebbels

Generally the officers of the army were indifferent whether the annexation [of Texas] was consummated or not; but not so all of them. For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory. — Ulysses S. Grant

It instructed Germany's ambassador in Mexico to offer Mexican president Venustiano Carranza an alliance, to take effect if the new submarine campaign drew America into the war. "Make war together," Zimmermann proposed. "Make peace together." In return, Germany would take measures to help Mexico seize previously held lands - "lost territory" - in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. — Erik Larson

As Margaret would later write, Europe had come to seem "my America," an unsettled territory where liberty was at hand, while the New World she had left behind had grown "stupid with the lust of gain, soiled by crime in its willing perpetuation of slavery, shamed by an unjust war," the imperialist conflict with Mexico over the annexation of Texas. — Megan Marshall

It is not possible to starve an organised terrorist group because it is number one a state, so it levies taxation inside the territory that is controlled by Islamic State. But also the activity, for example the smuggling of oil, is taking place in an area which is a war zone. So of course people will buy that oil because they don't have any alternative. So even if we wanted to stop that kind of trade, it will be very, very difficult to do that. — Loretta Napoleoni

But I won't watch them go to war again. I've been to war, you know, to save civilization from the reptile hordes. I bled for it, I saw friends and other men die for it. And then I watched men like you piss it away again, the civilization we'd saved, in squabbles over a few hundred square miles of territory and what language the people get to speak there, what color their skin and hair is and what kind of religious horseshit they get crammed down their throats. — Richard K. Morgan

I do not say that there is no glory to be gained [in war]; but it is not personal glory. In itself, no cause was ever more glorious than that of men who struggle, not to conquer territory, not to gather spoil, not to gratify ambition, but for freedom, for religion, for hearth and home, and to revenge the countless atrocities inflicted upon them by their oppressors. — G.A. Henty

Winning a war such as this was not about planting flags or defending territory or building fancy villas. It was not about titles or promotions or offices. It was not about democracy or jihad, freedom or honor. It was about resisting the categories chosen for you; about stubbornness in the face of grand designs and schemas. About doing what you had to do, whether they called you a terrorist or an infidel. To win a war like this was to master the ephemeral, to plan a future while knowing that it could all be over in an instant. To comfort your children when the air outside throbs in the middle of the night, to squeeze your spouse's hand tight when your taxi hits a pothole on an open highway, to go to school or the fields or a wedding and return to tell about it. To survive. — Anand Gopal

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few - the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill. — Smedley Butler

There's no doubt that Boko Haram has been driven from many of its strongholds in northeastern Nigeria. Now, President Muhammadu Buhari says technically, we have won the war. Those in the know say but technically, the army is still losing the battle because Boko Haram has changed tactics. Instead of now holding territory as it used to and calling this territory its own, now it is resorting to guerrilla tactics, hit-and-run raids and especially suicide bombings. — Ofeibea Quist-Arcton

In 1947, the U.N. offered the Palestinians 45 percent of historic Palestine. After the 1948 war, Palestinians were confined to 22 percent of the territory. Since the 1967 war, Israeli settlements, along with the separation wall and settler-only roads, have shrunk the Palestinian remnant to an even smaller fraction. — Anonymous

You can be a pawn, be someone's reward, and spend the rest of your immortal life bowing and scraping and pretending you're less than him, than Ianthe, than any of us. If you want to pick that road, then fine. A shame, but it's your choice." The shadow of wings rippled again. "But I know you - more than you realize, I think - and I don't believe for one damn minute that you're remotely fine with being a pretty trophy for someone who sat on his ass for nearly fifty years, then sat on his ass while you were shredded apart - "

"Stop it - "

"Or," he plowed ahead, "you've got another choice. You can master whatever powers we gave to you, and make it count. You can play a role in this war. Because war is coming one way or another, and do not try to delude yourself that any of the Fae will give a shit about your family across the wall when our whole territory is likely to become a charnel house." I stared — Sarah J. Maas

Southern Kordofan is not a disputed territory. It is, and will remain, in the north, where the Nuba Mountains are. People believe there was a genocide there in 1990s. The Nuba, who are northerners, fought with the south in the north-south war. But they have their own individual interests, and they will remain in the north after the south splits. — Rebecca Hamilton

Which war are you referring to, I asked, when you say the "last"? I meant the big one, the world war, he answered, because little ones, like ours, don't count as real wars. For those who are no longer alive, I said, every war is real. That is correct agreed Isak Levi, but a local war is actually abuse of the noun war, since it is most often armed conflict of limited intensity being waged on limited territory. Of course, he said, most of the conflicts registered in history belong to that category, I admit, and there are few wars that were truly grandiose. You speak of wars, I said, at least of the big ones, as though you admire them, and I see no justification for that. He saw no reason to admire them either, Isak Levi replied, but if they did exist, there was no point in closing one's eyes to the fact. — David Albahari

Unlike previous wars, our enemy now is a stateless network of religious extremists. They do not obey the laws of war, they hide among peaceful populations and launch surprise attacks on civilians. They have no armed forces per se, no territory or citizens to defend and no fear of dying during their attacks. Information is our primary weapon against this enemy, and intelligence gathered from captured operatives is perhaps the most effective means of preventing future attacks. — John Yoo

We have engrossed to ourselves, in a time when other powerful nations were paralysed by barbarism or internal war, an altogether disproportionate share of the wealth and traffic of the world. We have got all we want in territory, and our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force, often seems less reasonable to others than to us. — Margaret MacMillan

Each position, each metre of the Soviet territory must be stubbornly defended, to the last drop of blood. We must cling to every inch of Soviet soil and defend it to the end! — Joseph Stalin

The state's exclusive claim to violence to uphold its rule of law is, according to many, the very essence of statehood. For instance, in 1919, the eminent German sociologist Max Weber defined the state as "a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."6 This definition remains widely used today, and states that cannot maintain a monopoly of force and endure civil war or frequent violent crime are routinely described as "weak," "fragile," or "failed" states. — Sean McFate

Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And in a war that you cannot win, you don't want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation. You don't want Custer. You want Robert E. Lee, someone who knows how to fight for territory that can be won and how to surrender it when it can't, someone who understands that the damage is greatest if all you do is battle to the bitter end. — Atul Gawande

But the cruel quirk in the situation is that conditions on the other side of the line are so hopeless that 500 are now returning out of the 1000 who escaped daily. There is no place for them in Germany.....Nothing reveals the present state of affairs more clearly than the fact that people who risk their lives to get out of Soviet territory take the greater risk of going back when they see what awaits them outside. — Anne O'Hare McCormick

When crossing someone's borders you have to be prepared to engage in a war that is far more brutal than if it were to take place on neutral territory. — Sylvester Stallone

Especially has the State been successful in recent centuries in instilling fear of other State rulers. Since the land area of the globe has been parceled out among particular States, one of the basic doctrines of the State was to identify itself with the territory it governed. Since most men tend to love their homeland, the identification of that land and its people with the State was a means of making natural patriotism work to the State's advantage. If "Ruritania" was being attacked by "Walldavia," the first task of the State and its intellectuals was to convince the people of Ruritania that the attack was really upon them and not simply upon the ruling caste. In this way, a war between rulers was converted into a war between peoples, with each people coming to the defense of its rulers in the erroneous belief that the rulers were defending them. — Murray N. Rothbard

We have carried out the attempted premeditated murder of an entire nation. We were caught in that criminal act and have been obstructed. Now we have to suffer the punishment ... In the Balkan Wars, Serbia not only doubled its territory, but also its external enemies. — Dimitrije Tucovic

If I liken the Pacific War to a football match, I can say to you that the first half is over, we have kicked off after the interval, and we are going to carry the ball into enemy territory for a smashing victory. — John Curtin

She wants a truce.
With me?
Aye. She's quite. adamant about it. I can try to put her off until Ghleanna is at full strength but - No, no. See what her terms are.
My Lady?
I am not my mother, peacemaker. I can be reasonable. It's a new time for us all. A new time of hope and of change and of - You want access to the coast so you can attack the Lightnings, don't you?
And it is time for those barbarian Lightnings to bow down before me. — G.A. Aiken

The simple view is that medicine exists to fight death and disease, and that is, of course, its most basic task. Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And, in a war that you cannot win, you don't want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation. You don't want Custer. You want Robert E. Lee, someone who knew how to fight for territory when he could and how to surrender when he couldn't, someone who understood that the damage is greatest if all you do is fight to the bitter end. — Atul Gawande

In view of the fourteen incidents of sabotage and infiltration perpetrated in the past month alone, Israel may have no other choice but to adopt suitable countermeasures against the focal points of sabotage. Israel will continue to take action to prevent any and all attempts to perpetrate sabotage within her territory. There will be no immunity for any state which aids or abets such acts. — Levi Eshkol

The greatest war story ever told commemorates a war that established no boundaries, won no territory, and furthered no cause. — Caroline Alexander

This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. It cannot be otherwise.
If now there is not a communist government in Paris, this is only because Russia has no an army which can reach Paris in 1945. — Joseph Stalin

The removal of the Indians was explained by Lewis Cass - Secretary of War, governor of the Michigan territory, minister to France, presidential candidate: A principle of progressive improvement seems almost inherent in human nature ... We are all striving in the career of life to acquire riches of honor, or power, or some other object, whose possession is to realize the day dreams of our imaginations; and the aggregate of these efforts constitutes the advance of society. But there is little of this in the constitution of our savages. — Howard Zinn

Just imagine going to war over Danzig - such a world catastrophe, just to prevent Germany from getting a piece of territory that belonged to her; because Britain was afraid of Germany getting too strong. — Joachim Von Ribbentrop

The basic principle that we must follow in directing the armies of the Republic is this: that they must feed themselves on war at the expense of the enemy territory. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Football is like war. It's about taking territory. — Condoleezza Rice

Mayhem? Without inviting the Valkyrie? And in our territory, too? If beings were going to trespass in order to war, they should at least have the courtesy to invite the host faction to the conflict. — Kresley Cole

There is no precedent of a civilian population, displaced by a war that their leadership started and lost, claiming a right to return to territory that they failed to conquer. — Caroline Glick

To see justice done, men were prepared to take the law into their own hands. In the Carolinas, bands of vigilantes or Regulators crisscrossed the territory in the late 1760s, stamping out local hooligans and waging war on interlopers. This vigilante attitude was epitomized by a Scots Borders descendant from Pittsylvania County, Virginia, named Captain William Lynch. He ruled as virtual dictator of his county, punishing wrongdoers and warning lawless elements that "we will inflict such corporal punishment on him or them, as to us shall seem adequate to the crime committed or the damage sustained." "Lynch's Law," and the punishments and hangings it inflicted, also became part of American culture - an ugly part, but a legacy of a harsh world and a harsh, unforgiving people. — Arthur Herman

A state attacked by another which renews an old claim rarely yields it without a war: it prefers to defend its territory, as is always more honorable. But it may be advantageous to take the offensive, instead of awaiting the attack on the frontiers. — Antoine-Henri Jomini

A critical component of White House Scandal Defense 101 is rallying the partisan base. This keeps approval ratings in territory where the wheels don't start falling off. The way to achieve this goal is you go negative and you don't let up. If you're always attacking your accusers, the debate becomes one of Democrat vs. Republican, rather than right vs. wrong. Anyone who questions the legality of the decision to wiretap thousands of Americans unlawfully is attacked, as either an enabler of terrorists or a bitter partisan trying to distract a president at war. — Bob Barr

I've laid out a plan for how we keep people safe here at home, and I've laid out a plan of how we wage war and win by denying ISIS territory overseas. We must deny them their territory because the territory that they've conquered because Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama declared victory in Iraq and against every generals advice withdrew all of our troops, leaving a vacuum, weaponry, territory for ISIS to conquer, that territory, their caliphate, is that from which they draw legitimacy, potency, credibility. We have to deny them that territory. — Carly Fiorina

Has it ever occurred to you- have you never, somewhere along the line, received vibrations to the effect- that this territory was a separate nation? No matter what its political bonds, a nation with its own people, existing within a nation? A society highly paradoxical, with alarming inequities, but with the private honor of thousands of persons winking like lightning bugs through the night? No war was ever fought for so many different reasons meeting in one reason clear as crystal. They fought to preserve their identity. Their political identity, their personal identity. — Harper Lee

War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. — George Orwell

Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change the objects of war? Is not the love of wealth as domineering and enterprising a passion as that of power or glory? Have there not been as many wars founded upon commercial motives since that has become the prevailing system of nations, as were before occasioned by the cupidity of territory or dominion? Has — Alexander Hamilton

The call to "take the land" ... is not a call to a new political, cultural or geographical dominance. It is Kingdom of God territory. It is the will of the Eternal God being done on earth, as it is in heaven. — Ken Baker

We can export terrorism. We can assassinate and set fires inside the territory of the United States as it did to all of us. — Muammar Al-Gaddafi

Give me a good game-day party on Sunday afternoon and I'll show up, but knowing the intricate details about what was happening on the field had no interest for me. And I told that to my pal, Johnny. He was raving about a game, and I said that it seemed to me that 'every play was a few seconds of incomprehensible frenetic activity, followed by a minute and a half of standing around.' And he said, "Man, every single play is an entire chess game played out in six seconds." I didn't play chess, but I got the idea. The thought of a battle for territory being played both physically and strategically fascinated me. That was war, right? And if the game was war, then each play was a battle. — Gilbert Klein

We're in the Chicago suburbs, ruling our 'hood and the streets that lead here. It's a street war, where other
suburban gangs fight us for territory. Three blocks away are mansions and million-dollar houses. Right here,
in the real world, the street war rages on. The people in the million-dollar houses don't even realize a battle is
about to begin less than a half mile from their backyards. — Simone Elkeles

I can't see no great difference atween givin' up territory afore a war, out of a dread of war, and givin' it up after a war, because we can't help it-unless it be that the last is the most manful and honourable. — James F. Cooper