Civilian Quotes

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Quotes About Civilian

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The civilian wants to respect what the veteran has gone through. The veteran wants to protect memories that are painful and sacred to him from outside judgment. ~ Phil Klay
Civilian quotes by Phil Klay
The moral difference between a soldier and a civilian is that the soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member. The civilian does not. ~ Robert A. Heinlein
Civilian quotes by Robert A. Heinlein
The man who did the shooting was a civilian, Peter Kakhovsky, a gifted intellectual of extreme purity of motive in whom the conviction of the necessity of regicide burned with a gem-like flame. Determined to kill, expecting to die, this brilliant and terrible apparition, his slender form bundled up in a sheepskin coat, his delicate features surmounted by a shabby top hat, shot to kill with that indiscriminate ruthlessness which was later to characterise a whole generation of revolutionary terrorists. If he could not yet murder the Tsar, he would do the next best thing. ~ Edward Crankshaw
Civilian quotes by Edward Crankshaw
Looked at objectively, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths resulting from political violence are produced by what should be understood as "state terror." Terrorism also serves as an excuse to avoid diplomacy and the peaceful resolution of conflict. ~ Richard A. Falk
Civilian quotes by Richard A. Falk
Were you in the military?"
"Are you kidding me? I was in high school."
"High school," he said quietly. "You're American. And a civilian?"
"Uh, yes. An American civilian."
"Lovely. A straight answer. Keep it up. Did somebody train you?"
"No, nobody trained me. Unless you count the Rhode Island child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Why?"
Malachi held up his hand and ticked off the reasons with his fingers. "You stole a Guard's weapon. If I'm not mistaken, it belonged to a Gate Guard. Which means you managed to do it on your way into the city. You escaped Amid even after he had you in hand. You slashed his leg in just the right place, preventing him from chasing you. Under extreme duress, injured and cornered, you threw a knife and hit a target-"
"It's not like I hit something vital. ~ Sarah Fine
Civilian quotes by Sarah Fine
Many, Lorenzo, have held and still hold the opinion, that there is nothing which has less in common with another, and that is so dissimilar, as civilian life is from the military. Whence it is often observed, if anyone designs to avail himself of an enlistment in the army, that he soon changes, not only his clothes, but also his customs, his habits, his voice, and in the presence of any civilian custom, he goes to pieces; for I do not believe that any man can dress in civilian clothes who wants to be quick and ready for any violence; nor can that man have civilian customs and habits, who judges those customs to be effeminate and those habits not conducive to his actions; nor does it seem right to him to maintain his ordinary appearance and voice who, with his beard and cursing, wants to make other men afraid: which makes such an opinion in these times to be very true. But if they should consider the ancient institutions, they would not find matter more united, more in conformity, and which, of necessity, should be like to each other as much as these (civilian and military); for in all the arts that are established in a society for the sake of the common good of men, all those institutions created to (make people) live in fear of the laws and of God would be in vain, if their defense had not been provided for and which, if well arranged, will maintain not only these, but also those that are not well established. And so (on the contrary), good institutions without the help of t ~ Niccolo Machiavelli
Civilian quotes by Niccolo Machiavelli
The Constitutional Convention debated whether America should even have a standing army ... They worried that a powerful military could rival civilian government for power in our new country, and of course they worried that having a standing army around would create too much of a temptation to use it. ~ Rachel Maddow
Civilian quotes by Rachel Maddow
I think you also understand that one of the key things that's got to be done in Iraq is to build a mentality of understanding that the military needs to be subordinate to civilian control and respectful of its own people. ~ John Abizaid
Civilian quotes by John Abizaid
As a 22-year Army Veteran who served in Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, and as a Civilian Advisor to the Afghan Army in Operation Enduring Freedom, I understand both the gravity of giving the order, and the challenge of carrying it out. ~ Allen West
Civilian quotes by Allen West
WikiLeaks exposed corruption, war crimes, torture and cover-ups. It showed that we were lied to about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; that the U.S. military had deliberately hidden information about systematic torture and civilian casualties, which were much higher than reported. ~ Jemima Khan
Civilian quotes by Jemima Khan
I've never shot a civilian except when under orders. ~ William T. Vollmann
Civilian quotes by William T. Vollmann
Al-Qa'ida does not follow a traditional command structure, wear uniforms, carry its arms openly, or mass its troops at the borders of the nations it attacks. Nonetheless, it possesses the demonstrated capability to strike with little notice and cause significant civilian or military casualties. ~ John O. Brennan
Civilian quotes by John O. Brennan
There is no reason for a civilian to have an automatic weapon. ~ Michael Nutter
Civilian quotes by Michael Nutter
Recourse to thick narrative detail reveals that the principal hurdle in the way of a united Pakistan was not disagreement on constitutional matters but the transfer of power from military to civilian hands. More concerned with perpetuating himself in office, Yahya Khan was strikingly nonchalant about the six points. He left that to the West Pakistani politicians, in particular Bhutto, who, contrary to the impression in some quarters, was more of a fall guy for the military junta than a partner in crime. ~ Ayesha Jalal
Civilian quotes by Ayesha Jalal
Before the troops left Rome, the consul Varro made a number of extremely arrogant speeches. The nobles, he complained, were directly responsible for the war on Italian soil, and it would continue to prey upon the country's vitals if there were any more commanders on the Fabian model. He himself, on the contrary, would bring it to an end on the day he first caught sight of the enemy. His colleague Paullus spoke only once before the army marched, and in words which though true were hardly popular. His only harsh criticism of Varro was to express his surprise about how any army commander, while still at Rome, in his civilian clothes, could possibly know what his task on the field of battle would be, before he had become acquainted either with his own troops or the enemy's or had any idea of the lie and nature of the country where he was to operate--or how he could prophesy exactly when a pitched battle would occur. As for himself, he refused to recommend any sort of policy prematurely; for policy was moulded by circumstance, not circumstance by policy. . . . [T]o strengthen [Paullus'] determination Fabius (we are told) spoke to him at his departure in the following words.

'If, Lucius Aemilius, you were like your colleague, or if--which I should much prefer--you had a colleague like yourself, anything I could now say would be superfluous. Two good consuls would serve the country well in virtue of their own sense of honour, without any words from me; and two bad consuls ~ Livy
Civilian quotes by Livy
You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians. ~ Barry Goldwater
Civilian quotes by Barry Goldwater
In early 1961 a new president, John F. Kennedy, was told by military leaders and civilian officials that the Kingdom of Laos - of no conceivable strategic importance to the U.S. - required the presence of American troops and perhaps even tactical nuclear weapons. Why? Because if Laos fell, Asia would go red from Thailand to Indonesia. ~ Jeff Greenfield
Civilian quotes by Jeff Greenfield
On December 20, 1989, the United States attacked Panama with what was reported to be the largest airborne assault on a city since World War II.6 It was an unprovoked attack on a civilian population. Panama and her people posed absolutely no threat to the United States or to any other country. Politicians, governments, and press around the world denounced the unilateral U.S. action as a clear violation of international law. ~ John Perkins
Civilian quotes by John Perkins
[…] mines don't work that way. They don't blow up a human body, they take off a leg or ankle or the family jewels. That's what they're designed for, not to kill people, but to wound 'em so the army will spend valuable resources keeping them alive, and then send 'em home in a wheelchair so Ma and Pa Civilian can be reminded every time they see 'em that maybe supporting this war isn't such a good idea. ~ Max Brooks
Civilian quotes by Max Brooks
The vast majority of arrests carried out by the military appear to be entirely arbitrary, often based solely on the dubious word of a paid informant. Military sources repeatedly told Amnesty International that the informants are unreliable and often provide false information in order to get paid.

One officer said: "The military uses civilian informants to get information and arrest suspects. Most of these informants are liars. They give false information to the soldiers who are desperate to simply shoot and kill. Many of the soldiers don't know about investigations. The soldiers take these rash actions mainly out of frustration, especially after seeing their colleagues killed. ~ Amnesty International
Civilian quotes by Amnesty International
As in any war, there have been dreadful mistakes and civilian casualties. The difference is when Israelis kill innocents they apologize; when Hezbollah kills innocents they celebrate. ~ J. D. Hayworth
Civilian quotes by J. D. Hayworth
I felt that it was an unnecessary loss of civilian life ... We had them beaten. They hadn't enough food, they couldn't do anything. ~ Chester W. Nimitz
Civilian quotes by Chester W. Nimitz
The administration says, then, there are no downsides or upsides to treating terrorists like civilian criminal defendants, but a lot of us would beg to differ. ~ Sarah Palin
Civilian quotes by Sarah Palin
Nonetheless, Article 5 makes clear that if an Iraqi civilian who is not a member of the armed forces, has engaged in attacks on Coalition forces, the Geneva Convention permits the use of more coercive interrogation approaches to prevent future attacks. ~ John Yoo
Civilian quotes by John Yoo
We have put the Cold War behind us. We no longer count our divisions and our warheads. And I am Russia's first civilian defense minister in many centuries. We have become more pragmatic. ~ Sergei Ivanov
Civilian quotes by Sergei Ivanov
In one of the army's most outrageous Jim Crow episodes, an order came down at a Pennsylvania camp warning that "any association between the colored soldiers and white women, whether voluntary or not, would be considered rape. And the penalty would be death." After howls of protest from William H. Hastie, the civilian aide to the war secretary, and the NAACP, the War Department revoked the order. ~ Linda Hervieux
Civilian quotes by Linda Hervieux
To respond in kind to the violence of apartheid was just wrong. Terrorism was based on the use of indiscriminate violence, directed at civilian people because they happened to belong to a particular group, race, or community. [ ... ] It was completely antithetical to our ideals. We were fighting for justice against the system of white supremacy, not against a race. ~ Albie Sachs
Civilian quotes by Albie Sachs
The much-discussed estimate of twenty-two vets a day committing suicide in the United States is deceptive: it was only in 2008 that - for the first time in decades- the suicide rate among veterans surpassed the civilian rate in America, and though each death is enormously tragic, the majority of those veterans were over the age of fifty. Many were Vietnam vets and, generally speaking, the more time that passes after a trauma, the less likely a suicide is to have anything to do with it. ~ Sebastian Junger
Civilian quotes by Sebastian Junger
The inside of the Pentagon is an incredible place and a dramatic set. We do [travel] outside, but the inside workings of the civilian oversight of the military inside the Pentagon is really about as exciting as anything you ever want to deal with. It is really amazing. ~ Dennis Hopper
Civilian quotes by Dennis Hopper
This "sir, yes sir" business, which would probably sound like horseshit to any civilian in his right mind, makes sense to Shaftoe and to the officers in a deep and important way. Like a lot of others, Shaftoe had trouble with military etiquette at first. He soaked up quite a bit of it growing up in a military family, but living the life was a different matter. Having now experienced all the phases of military existence except for the terminal ones (violent death, court-martial, retirement), he has come to understand the culture for what it is: a system of etiquette within which it becomes possible for groups of men to live together for years, travel to the ends of the earth, and do all kinds of incredibly weird shit without killing each other or completely losing their minds in the process. The extreme formality with which he addresses these officers carries an important subtext: your problem, sir, is deciding what you want me to do, and my problem, sir, is doing it. My gung-ho posture says that once you give the order I'm not going to bother you with any of the details--and your half of the bargain is you had better stay on your side of the line, sir, and not bother me with any of the chickenshit politics that you have to deal with for a living. The implied responsibility placed upon the officer's shoulders by the subordinate's unhesitating willingness to follow orders is a withering burden to any officer with half a brain, and Shaftoe has more than once seen seasoned noncom ~ Neal Stephenson
Civilian quotes by Neal Stephenson
The Second Amendment reveals a profound principle of American government - the principle of civilian ascendency over the military. ~ William O. Douglas
Civilian quotes by William O. Douglas
Former vice president Al Gore has devoted his post-administration years to a mission to tell the world about global warming. It's funny, but in his civilian life Gore has discovered the voice that voters had trouble hearing when he ran for president in 2000. The voice he has found is clear, impassioned, and moving. ~ Graydon Carter
Civilian quotes by Graydon Carter
Goddamn embarrassing what a civilian you've become, man. ~ Dennis Lehane
Civilian quotes by Dennis Lehane
Civilians are like beans; you buy 'em as needed for any job which merely requires skill and savvy.
But you can't buy fighting spirit. ~ Robert A. Heinlein
Civilian quotes by Robert A. Heinlein
I'm so proud of you, and so amused at your discomfort in being recognized for you dedication and skill."
"Amused? Here's another funny for you. You're getting a medal, too."
He dropped her hand. "What? I'm a civilian, as you continually remind me."
"The Civilian Medal of Merit, and they don't given them out like candy, pal, especially to shady characters."
"I don't think it's appropriate."
She loved it, just loved when he turned all dignified.
"Oh, it is, and how I get to be amused. You're the one who started sticking his nose in, then his whole body. Now you're going to have to stand up there on Wednesday afternoon - fourteen hundred, so put that in your book - and take what you get. And I'm pretty damn proud of you, too, so suck it up. ~ J.D. Robb
Civilian quotes by J.D. Robb
I am the first Egyptian civilian president elected democratically, freely, following a great, peaceful revolution. ~ Mohammed Morsi
Civilian quotes by Mohammed Morsi
Israel's shooting down of a civilian airplane and then the killing of 107 innocent peopel aboard, and their raid into neutral Lebanon are very dangerous developments. There's only one way I can see to stop it ... is for the United States to take a very strong stand that this has to be settled ... politically settled. ~ J. William Fulbright
Civilian quotes by J. William Fulbright
About 14 percent of our nation's civilian workforce is foreign-born. ~ George W. Bush
Civilian quotes by George W. Bush
By requiring all 30 million Americans age 18 to 25 to perform two years of national service, in the military or civilian life, we will be asking for a shared sacrifice from all American citizens. ~ Charles B. Rangel
Civilian quotes by Charles B. Rangel
Back home, Chris struggled to readjust, physically and mentally. He also faced another decision-reenlist, or leave the Navy and start a new life in the civilian world.
This time, he seemed to be leaning toward getting out-he'd been discussing other jobs and had already talked to people about what he might do next.
It was his decision, one way or another. But if I'd been resigned to his reenlistment last go-around, this time I was far more determined to let him know I thought he should get out.
There were two important reasons for him to leave-our children. They really needed to have him around as they grew. And I made that a big part of my argument.
But the most urgent reason was Chris himself. I saw what the war was doing to him physically. His body was breaking down with multiple injuries, big and small. There were rings under his eyes even when he had slept. His blood pressure was through the roof. He had to wall himself off more and more.
I didn't think he could survive another deployment.
"I'll support you whatever you decide," I told him. "I want to be married to you. But the only way I can keep making sense of this is…I need to do the best for the kids and me. If you have to keep doing what is best for you and those you serve, at some point I owe it to myself and those I serve to do the same. For me, that is moving to Oregon."
For me, that meant moving from San Diego to Oregon, where we could live near my folks. That would give our so ~ Taya Kyle
Civilian quotes by Taya Kyle
There is one unalterable difference between a soldier and a civilian: the civilian never does more than he is paid to do. ~ Erwin Rommel
Civilian quotes by Erwin Rommel
During World War II, there had been a project to sabotage the Nazi nuclear weapons program. Years earlier, Leo Szilard, the first person to realize the possibility of a fission chain reaction, had convinced Fermi not to publish the discovery that purified graphite was a cheap and effective neutron moderator. Fermi had wanted to publish, for the sake of the great international project of science, which was above nationalism. But Szilard had persuaded Rabi, and Fermi had abided by the majority vote of their tiny three-person conspiracy. And so, years later, the only neutron moderator the Nazis had known about was deuterium.

The only deuterium source under Nazi control had been a captured facility in occupied Norway, which had been knocked out by bombs and sabotage, causing a total of twenty-four civilian deaths.

The Nazis had tried to ship the deuterium already refined to Germany, aboard a civilian Norwegian ferry, the SS Hydro.

Knut Haukelid and his assistants had been discovered by the night watchman of the civilian ferry while they were sneaking on board to sabotage it. Haukelid had told the watchman that they were escaping the Gestapo, and the watchman had let them go. Haukelid had considered warning the night watchman, but that would have endangered the mission, so Haukelid had only shaken his hand. And the civilian ship had sunk in the deepest part of the lake, with eight dead Germans, seven dead crew, and three dead civilian bystanders. S ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky
Civilian quotes by Eliezer Yudkowsky
Angua wondered if there was ever a time when anyone in the Watch was ever, really, off duty. She couldn't imagine Sergeant Colon in civilian clothes. When you were a Watchman, you were a Watchman all the time, which was a bit of a bargain for the city since it only paid you to be a Watchman for ten hours of every day. ~ Terry Pratchett
Civilian quotes by Terry Pratchett
You learn more about life and people in two hours of war than in four decades of peace. War is dirty, sure, war is senseless, but come on! Civilian life is also senseless, in its sameness and it's reasonableness and because it dulls the instincts. The truth that no one dares speak aloud is that war is a pleasure, The greatest pleasure there is, otherwise it would stop immediately. Once you've tasted it, it's like heroin: you want more. (...) The taste for war, real war, is as natural to man as taste for peace, it's idiotic to want to eliminate it by repeating virtuously that peace is good and war is evil. In fact it's like men and women, yin and yang: you need both. ~ Emmanuel Carrere
Civilian quotes by Emmanuel Carrere
[A] world in which it is wrong to murder an individual civilian and right to drop a thousand tons of high explosive on a residential area does sometimes make me wonder whether this earth of ours is not a loony bin made use of by some other planet. Not to have a national anthem would be logical. ~ George Orwell
Civilian quotes by George Orwell
When I was at the CIA I asked my civilian advisory board to tackle some tough questions. Among the toughest: In a political culture that every day demands more transparency and more public accountability from every aspect of national life, could American intelligence continue to survive and succeed? That jury is still out. ~ Michael Hayden
Civilian quotes by Michael Hayden
Though he never actually joined it, he was close to some civilian elements of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was the most Communist (and in the rather orthodox sense) of the Palestinian formations. I remember Edward once surprising me by saying, and apropos of nothing: 'Do you know something I have never done in my political career? I have never publicly criticized the Soviet Union. It's not that I terribly sympathize with them or anything - it's just that the Soviets have never done anything to harm me, or us.' At the time I thought this a rather naïve statement, even perhaps a slightly contemptible one, but by then I had been in parts of the Middle East where it could come as a blessed relief to meet a consecrated Moscow-line atheist-dogmatist, if only for the comparatively rational humanism that he evinced amid so much religious barking and mania. It was only later to occur to me that Edward's pronounced dislike of George Orwell was something to which I ought to have paid more attention. ~ Christopher Hitchens
Civilian quotes by Christopher Hitchens
The Secretary of Defense is not a super General or Admiral. His task is to exercise civilian control over the Department for the Commander-in-Chief and the country. ~ Donald Rumsfeld
Civilian quotes by Donald Rumsfeld
Today, people just want to live their lives, they don't need some great Idea. This is entirely new for Russia; it's unprecedented in Russian literature. At heart, we're built for war. We were always either fighting or preparing to fight. We've never known anything else - hence our wartime psychology. Even in civilian life, everything was always militarized. The drums were beating, the banners flying, our hearts leaping out of our chests. People didn't recognize their own slavery - they even liked being slaves. I ~ Svetlana Alexievich
Civilian quotes by Svetlana Alexievich
No civilian has been allowed to see the gold in Fort Knox since 1974, nearly 40 years ago. ~ Brad Meltzer
Civilian quotes by Brad Meltzer
Every thing in life is a uniform; the only time our bodies are truly in civilian dress is when we're naked. ~ Jose Saramago
Civilian quotes by Jose Saramago
The resulting fractious, at times even dysfunctional, relationship between the top brass and civilian political leaders is one of Washington's dirty little secrets - recognized by all of the inside players, concealed from an electorate that might ask discomfiting questions about who is actually in charge. ~ Andrew J. Bacevich
Civilian quotes by Andrew J. Bacevich
Wars results in immediate deaths and destruction, but the environmental consequences can last hundreds, often thousands of years. And it is not just war itself that undermines our life support system, but also the research and development, military exercises and general preparations for battle that are carried out on a daily basis in most parts of the world. The majority of this pre-war activity takes place without the benefit of civilian scrutiny and therefore we are unaware of some of what is being done to our environment in the name of 'security. ~ Rosalie Bertell
Civilian quotes by Rosalie Bertell
History of warfare has not yet enabled any army, any civilized army, the army of a democracy like Israel, to be able to deal with a ruthless terrorist enemy that uses civilians as a human shield without having some incidental civilian casualties. ~ Benjamin Netanyahu
Civilian quotes by Benjamin Netanyahu
The plane was on descent. Reacher could feel it in his ears. And he could feel abrupt turns. The pilot was military, so he was using the rudder. Civilian pilots avoid using the rudder. Using the rudder makes the plane slew, like a car skids. Passengers don't like the feeling. So civilian pilots turn by juicing the engines on one side and backing off on the others. Then the plane comes around smoothly. But military pilots don't care about their passengers' comfort. It's not like they've bought tickets. ~ Lee Child
Civilian quotes by Lee Child
A few Grik lunged at them, but the vast majority only wanted to get out of their way. These they left alone, conserving ammunition. It was a little disconcerting. They'd never seen so many "civilian" Grik before, and it was stunning how little fight they had in them.
"What a buncha pansies!" Silva panted, still having trouble with the heavy, wretched air. Three Grik had nearly fallen over themselves trying to clear his path when he menaced them with the Thompson. Its barrel was still smoking after a long burst he fired down a congested alley where another column of warriors was struggling to get at them. Those that followed fired into the writhing mass as well, the heavy booming of their rifles much louder than the stutter of the Thompson.
"Pansies!" Petey cawed. "Pansies! Ack! Goddamn! ~ Taylor Anderson
Civilian quotes by Taylor Anderson
Well, the U.N. Security Council resolution 1973 is very clear. It says all necessary measures to be taken to protect civilians and civilian areas. I mean, that to me is very clear. ~ Mike Jackson
Civilian quotes by Mike Jackson
I try to express with the camera what the story is, to get to the heart of the story with picture. In battle I look at things first in terms of people, second in terms of strategies or casualties ... To tell a story, you don't photograph one hundred dead civilians to prove there were one hundred dead civilians. You photograph one dead civilian with an expression on his face that says, This is what it's like if you're a dead civilian in Vietnam. ~ Horst Faas
Civilian quotes by Horst Faas
It was astonishing how loudly one laughed at tales of gruesome things, of war's brutality-I with the rest of them. I think at the bottom of it was a sense of the ironical contrast between the normal ways of civilian life and this hark-back to the caveman code. It made all our old philosophy of life monstrously ridiculous. It played the "hat trick" with the gentility of modern manners. Men who had been brought up to Christian virtues, who had prattled their little prayers at mothers' knees, who had grown up to a love of poetry, painting, music, the gentle arts, over-sensitized to the subtleties of half-tones, delicate scales of emotion, fastidious in their choice of words, in their sense of beauty, found themselves compelled to live and act like ape-men; and it was abominably funny. They laughed at the most frightful episodes, which revealed this contrast between civilized ethics and the old beast law. The more revolting it was the more, sometimes, they shouted with laughter, especially in reminiscence, when the tale was told in the gilded salon of a French chateau, or at a mess-table.

It was, I think, the laughter of mortals at the trick which had been played on them by an ironical fate. They had been taught to believe that the whole object of life was to reach out to beauty and love, and that mankind, in its progress to perfection, had killed the beast instinct, cruelty, blood-lust, the primitive, savage law of survival by tooth and claw and club and ax. All poetr ~ Phillip Gibbs
Civilian quotes by Phillip Gibbs
1. Bangladesh.... In 1971 ... Kissinger overrode all advice in order to support the Pakistani generals in both their civilian massacre policy in East Bengal and their armed attack on India from West Pakistan.... This led to a moral and political catastrophe the effects of which are still sorely felt. Kissinger's undisclosed reason for the 'tilt' was the supposed but never materialised 'brokerage' offered by the dictator Yahya Khan in the course of secret diplomacy between Nixon and China.... Of the new state of Bangladesh, Kissinger remarked coldly that it was 'a basket case' before turning his unsolicited expertise elsewhere. ~ William M. Arkin
Civilian quotes by William M. Arkin
As Wilson mourned his wife, German forces in Belgium entered quiet towns and villages, took civilian hostages, and executed them to discourage resistances. In the town of Dinant, German soldiers shot 612 men, women, and children. The American press called such atrocities acts of "frightfulness," the word then used to describe what later generations would call terrorism. On August 25, German forces bean an assault on the Belgian city of Louvain, the "Oxford of Belgium," a university town that was home to an important library. Three days of shelling and murder left 209 civilians dead, 1,100 buildings incinerated, and the library destroyed, along with its 230,000 books, priceless manuscripts, and artifacts. The assault was deemed an affront to just to Belgium but to the world. Wilson, a past president of Princeton University, "felt deeply the destruction of Louvain," according to his friend, Colonel House; the president feared "the war would throw the world back three or four centuries. ~ Erik Larson
Civilian quotes by Erik Larson
That's what arrest is: it's a blinding flash and a blow which shifts the present instantly into the past and the impossible into omnipotent actuality.
That's all. And neither for the first hour nor for the first day will you be able to grasp anything else.
Except that in your desperation the fake circus moon will blink at you: "It's a mistake! They'll set things right!"
And everything which is by now comprised in the traditional, even literary, image of an arrest will pile up and take shape, not in your own disordered memory, but in what your family and your neighbors in your apartment remember: The sharp nighttime ring or the rude knock at the door.
The insolent entrance of the unwiped jackboots of the unsleeping State Security operatives. The frightened and cowed civilian witness at their backs. (And what function does this civilian witness serve? The victim doesn't even dare think about it and the operatives don't remember, but that's what the regulations call for, and so he has to sit there all night long and sign in the morning. 1 For the witness, jerked from his bed, it is torture too - to go out night after night to help arrest his own neighbors and acquaintances. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Civilian quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
It is the civilian part of the politics that is very, very bad, and we have to change that. ~ Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
Civilian quotes by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
Every superhero has this superhero identity and a civilian identity. A lot of their lives are about code switching. ~ Gene Luen Yang
Civilian quotes by Gene Luen Yang
[W]hile the use of non-lethal weapons such as tasers and LEDIs may not necessarily reduce the number of civilian casualties, they have been largely accepted as the humane alternative to deadly force because they make the use of force appear far less dramatic and violent than it has in the past.
Contrast, for instance, the image of police officers beating Rodney King with billy clubs as opposed to police officers continually shocking a person with a taser. Both are severe forms of abuse. However, because the act of pushing a button is far less dramatic and visually arresting than swinging a billy club, it can come across as much more humane to the general public. This, of course, draws much less media coverage and, thus, less bad public relations for the police. ~ John W. Whitehead
Civilian quotes by John W. Whitehead
Uganda's Constitutional Court will decide whether the military court can proceed with this trial. A nation cannot claim to be operating under the rule of law if its military tribunals ignore the orders of civilian courts. ~ Bill Vaughan
Civilian quotes by Bill Vaughan
I'm saying this as a Republican: In the White House, the effort that goes in and wherever these decisions are made, as to limit civilian casualties, is more probably than any in the history of the world, especially when you consider the history of warfare. ~ Peter T. King
Civilian quotes by Peter T. King
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is continually reviewing its safety plan for the 100-plus operating civilian nuclear reactors in the United States. And when those plants were put into operation, they were required to have double and triple redundant safety systems. ~ Joe Barton
Civilian quotes by Joe Barton
On our way down, we passed a two-story villa, hidden in a thicket of Chinese parasol trees, magnolia, and pines. It looked almost like a random pile of stones against the background of the rocks. It struck me as an unusually lovely place, and I snapped my last shot. Suddenly a man materialized out of nowhere and asked me in a low but commanding voice to hand over my camera. He wore civilian clothes, but I noticed he had a pistol. He opened the camera and exposed my entire roll of film. Then he disappeared, as if into the earth. Some tourists standing next to me whispered that this was one of Mao's summer villas. I felt another pang of revulsion toward Mao, not so much for his privilege, but for the hypocrisy of allowing himself luxury while telling his people that even comfort was bad for them. After we were safely out of earshot of the invisible guard, and I was bemoaning the loss of my thirty-six pictures, Jin-ming gave me a grin: "See where goggling at holy places gets you!"

We left Lushan by bus. Like every bus in China, it was packed, and we had to crane our necks desperately trying to breathe. Virtually no new buses had been built since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, during which time the urban population had increased by several tens of millions. After a few minutes, we suddenly stopped. The front door was forced open, and an authoritative-looking man in plainclothes squeezed in.

"Get down! Get down!" he barked.

"Some Amer ~ Jung Chang
Civilian quotes by Jung Chang
would have breached a fundamental maritime code, the cruiser rules, or prize law, established in the nineteenth century to govern warfare against civilian shipping. Obeyed ever since by all seagoing powers, the rules held that a warship could stop a merchant vessel and search it but had to keep its crew safe and bring the ship to a nearby port, where a "prize court" would determine its fate. The rules forbade attacks against passenger vessels. ~ Erik Larson
Civilian quotes by Erik Larson
When the war ended, more than twelve million men and women put their uniforms aside and returned to civilian life. They went back to work at their old jobs or started small businesses; they became big-city cops and firemen; they finished their degrees or enrolled in college for the first time; they became schoolteachers, ~ Tom Brokaw
Civilian quotes by Tom Brokaw
Nature is located mainly in national parks, which are vast tracts of wilderness that have been set aside by the United States government so citizens will always have someplace to go where they can be attacked by bears. And we're not talking about ordinary civilian bears, either: We're talking about federal bears, which can behave however they want to because they are protected by the same union as postal clerks. ~ Dave Barry
Civilian quotes by Dave Barry
The word 'art' interests me very much. If it comes from Sanskrit, as I've heard, it signifies 'making.' Now everyone makes something, and those who make things on a canvas with a frame, they're called artists. Formerly, they were called craftsmen, a term I prefer. We're all craftsmen, in civilian or military or artistic life. ~ Marcel Duchamp
Civilian quotes by Marcel Duchamp
It was very clear to me I wanted to be an actor when I got out into civilian life. ~ Adam Driver
Civilian quotes by Adam Driver
It is hard to realize today that "government" during the American Civil War a hundred years ago meant the merest handful of people. Lincoln's Secretary of War had fewer than fifty civilian subordinates, most of them not "executives" and policy-makers but telegraph clerks. The entire Washington establishment of the U.S. government in Theodore Roosevelt's time, around 1900, could be comfortably housed in any one of the government buildings along the Mall today. ~ Peter F. Drucker
Civilian quotes by Peter F. Drucker
With all this talk about the supposed strain in relations [with the Soviet Union], there is an inference that somehow it is our fault. But we didn't kill Russian civilians by shooting down a civilian airplane. We didn't attempt to conquer an adjacent country to ours. We didn't walk out on negotiations and refuse to give a date for when we would resume. ~ Ronald Reagan
Civilian quotes by Ronald Reagan
The thing that really struck me was how many firms that we think of as strictly civilian had ties to the Pentagon. Companies like Apple, Starbucks, Oakley the sunglasses manufacturer. Even Google, and a lot of big corporations like PepsiCo, Colgate-Palmolive, and Nestle, that you don't normally think of as defense contractors. ~ Nick Turse
Civilian quotes by Nick Turse
Respecting our veterans includes providing them the ways and means they so desperately need to reintegrate into our lives and serve us again as productive members of our civilian community. ~ Charles B. Rangel
Civilian quotes by Charles B. Rangel
I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon. What happened is that Israel is holding almost 10,000 prisoners, so when the militants in Lebanon or in Gaza take one or two soldiers, Israel looks upon this as a justification for an attack on the civilian population of Lebanon and Gaza. I do not think that's justified, no. ~ Jimmy Carter
Civilian quotes by Jimmy Carter
The cost of an on-site inspection team would be minuscule compared to war, Saddam would have no choice except to comply, the results would be certain, military and civilian casualties would be avoided, there would be almost unanimous worldwide support, and the United States could regain its leadership in combating the real threat of international terrorism. ~ Jimmy Carter
Civilian quotes by Jimmy Carter
The film libraries on some of these channels." Elmina said. "I swear. There was one on last night. I couldn't sleep. After I saw, it, I was afraid ro sleep. Have you seen Black Narcissus, 1947?"
Eddie, who was enrolled in the graduate film program at SC, let out a scream of recognition. He's been working on his doctoral dissertation, "Deadpasn to Demoniac - Subtextual Uses of Eyeliner in the Cinema," and had just in fact arrived at moment in Black Narcissus where Kathleen Byron, as a demented nun, shows up in civilian gear, including eye makeup good for a year's worth of nighmares. ~ Thomas Pynchon
Civilian quotes by Thomas Pynchon
It has never demonstrated any desire to provide humane treatment to captured Americans. If anything, the murders of Nicholas Berg and Daniel Pearl declare al Qaeda's intentions to kill even innocent civilian prisoners. ~ John Yoo
Civilian quotes by John Yoo
If paparazzi armed with telephoto lenses have long been the scourge of the rich and famous; civilian drones are fast becoming the new menace to the ordinary man on the street. ~ Alex Morritt
Civilian quotes by Alex Morritt
I stand by my work on behalf of the citizens of Spokane to further justice and promote civilian oversight of law enforcement. ~ Rachel Dolezal
Civilian quotes by Rachel Dolezal
When people see the terrible scenes of violence on television, when we mourn the death of each and every American man and woman in uniform or a civilian that's killed, that it's hard to see the progress that's being made and it's hard to believe that this is all going to come out for the better. ~ Condoleezza Rice
Civilian quotes by Condoleezza Rice
I broke down while at Oxford, was rejected by a record number of medical tribunals during the War, and finally got permission to leave Oxford and do civilian work till the War ended. ~ Leonard Alfred George Strong
Civilian quotes by Leonard Alfred George Strong
The most effective means of fighting crime in the United States is to outlaw the possession of any type of firearm by the civilian populace. ~ Janet Reno
Civilian quotes by Janet Reno
What is and isn't justified by military necessity is, naturally, open to interpretation. One of the key concepts, though, is the law of proportionality. A military attack that results in civilian casualties - 'collateral damage' - is acceptable as long as the military benefits outweigh the price that is paid by humanity. ~ Sebastian Junger
Civilian quotes by Sebastian Junger
I showed my magic to a civilian one time, and it got ugly. ~ Charlie Jane Anders
Civilian quotes by Charlie Jane Anders
War traumatizes soldier and civilian alike; warfare is a profit-making racket; warfare resolves nothing that negotiations can't resolve better; the weapons we have now make non-violence the only option to planetary annihilation. ~ Madeline Taylor
Civilian quotes by Madeline Taylor
Reports of coalition bombs on civilian targets such as flour-mills wins more converts. "Many people now view the coalition as waging war on Islam, not extremism," says Usama Shehadeh, a Quietist preacher in Amman who fears he is losing his flock. ~ Anonymous
Civilian quotes by Anonymous
In royal service, soldiers and sailors were often expected to provide for themselves by preying on the civilian population: commandeering, raping, looting, taking prizes. When demobilized, they commonly continued the same practices, but without the same royal protection; demobilized ships became pirate vessels, demobilized troops bandits. ~ Steven Pinker
Civilian quotes by Steven Pinker
In this age, I don't care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are, if you cannot create harmony-even vicious harmony-on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete. We have got to have officers who can create harmony across all those lines. ~ James Mattis
Civilian quotes by James Mattis
I propose to create a Civilian Conservation Corps to be used in simple work ... More important, however, than the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
Civilian quotes by Franklin D. Roosevelt
USA drone attacks are a crime against humanity, We Need Humanity , More than Cleverness, We need kindness, We need all of Human qualities more than USA definition.. U.S.A Drone Program Needs to Be Accompanied by Hard Facts on Civilian Deaths.USA Added Black Pages To History Of Humanity.It should be noted as dangerous for Human Kind, human rights ,rights of life liberty and pursuit of happiness . ~ Suraj
Civilian quotes by Suraj
No one in the United States has become seriously ill or has died because of any kind of accident at a civilian nuclear power plant. ~ Joe Barton
Civilian quotes by Joe Barton
The military mind tends to be conservative, realistic and historical. The civilian mind tends to be liberal, idealistic and Utopian. Journalists, obviously, are civilians, and they tend to distrust, and to suspect, the military's motives. ~ Mark Riebling
Civilian quotes by Mark Riebling
We have been waiting for an hour when we see a squad of German soldiers line up on the roadbed alongside the train. Next comes a column of people in civilian clothes. Surely they are Jews. All of them are rather well dressed, with suitcases in their hands as if departing peacefully on vacation. They climb aboard the train while a sergeant major keeps them moving along, "Schnell, schnell." There are men and women of all ages, even children. Among them I see one of my former students, Jeanine Crémieux. She got married in 1941 and had a baby last spring. She is holding the infant in her left arm and a suitcase in her right hand. The first step is very high above the rocky roadbed. She puts the suitcase on the step and holds on with one hand to the doorjamb, but she can't quite hoist herself up. The sergeant major comes running, hollers, and kicks her in the rear. Losing her balance, she screams as her baby falls to the ground, a pathetic little white wailing heap. I will never know if it was hurt, because my friends pulled me back and grabbed my hand just as I was about to shoot.

Today I know what hate is, real hate, and I swear to myself that these acts will be paid for. ~ Lucie Aubrac
Civilian quotes by Lucie Aubrac
It occurred to him that all strongly accentuated classes, such as the military, divided men into two kinds: their own kind--and those without. To the clergyman there were clergy and laity, to the Catholic there were Catholics and non-Catholics, to the negro there were blacks and whites, to the prisoner there were the imprisoned and the free, and to the sick man there were the sick and the well.... So, without thinking of it once in his lifetime, he had been a civilian, a layman, a non-Catholic, a Gentile, white, free, and well.... ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
Civilian quotes by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The standard argument is that civilian deaths in Afghanistan were the regrettable consequence of military action that was needed to destroy Al Qaida bases and thus prevent further terrorist attacks. But this is a spurious argument since it is obvious that Al Qaida is a decentralised network. The counterargument – that bombing Afghanistan has made it more likely that terrorists will attack – is equally plausible. Most of the September nth hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, ~ Mark Curtis
Civilian quotes by Mark Curtis
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