Defending Quotes

Maintain the name you build. It is easier to make a good brand than to maintain a good brand already made. Wining a trophy is not as difficult as defending it. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

Can we live without Russian gas in Europe? The answer is no. Are there any reasons to live without it? I think - and I'm not defending the interests of Total in Russia - it is a no. ~ Christophe De Margerie

But that was the nature of relationships: there always seemed to be an imbalance of one sort of another. And it was fine to plan an emotional strategy, but another thing when the ground opened up in front of you, and your defending troops toppled into a ravine which hadn't been marked on the map until a few seconds previously. ~ Julian Barnes

The rich people are apparently leaving America. They're giving up their citizenship. These great lovers of America who made their money in this country-when you ask them to pay their fair share of taxes they run abroad. We have 19-year old kids who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan defending this country. They went abroad. Not to escape taxes. They're working class kids who died in wars and now billionaires want to run abroad to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. What patriotism! What love of country! ~ Bernie Sanders

Marital faithfulness involves more than just sexual fidelity. Being faithful to your wife also means defending her and affirming her beauty, intelligence, and integrity at all times, particularly before other people. Faithfulness to your husband means sticking up for him, always building him up and never tearing him down. Marital fidelity means that your spouse's health, happiness, security, and welfare take a higher place in your life than anything else except your own relationship with the Lord. ~ Myles Munroe

Money has, as we know, no value in itself. It is a convenient yardstick for a large number of material values. But the health and life of an individual as well as the health of a nation cannot be measured by that yardstick. If we, entrusted with protecting and defending the health of the population, give in to a salesman's scale of values we are lost. ~ Karl Evang

The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Beyond their immaculate design, the reason sharks rule the ocean is their complete indifference to everything except feeding, procreation, and defending their territory. The shark does not love. It feels no empathy. It trusts nothing. It lives in perfect harmony with its environment because it has no aspirations or desires. And no pity. A shark feels no sorrow, no remorse, hopes for nothing, dreams of nothing, has no illusions about itself or anything beyond itself. ~ Rick Yancey

As an American I am of course fundamentally opposed to democracy and to anyone advocating or defending democracy, which in theory and practice is the basis of socialism. ~ Rose Wilder Lane

After a while, you get tired of being the official Scot and defending everything Scottish. ~ Philip Kerr

If we cannot be defending our borders in person, we be a person the forces are proud to protect. ~ Sandeep Sahajpal

Defending your point of view while knowing that you are wrong is just like a person whose wisdom is being obstructed by his arrogance ~ Waqas Haider

The State lives by its very existence on the two-fold and pervasive employment of aggressive violence against the very liberty and property of individuals that it is supposed to be defending. ~ Murray Rothbard

Conservatism has always meant more to me than simply sticking up for private property & free enterprise. It has also meant defending our heritage & preserving our values. ~ Gerald R. Ford

The operational word in every competent defense is attack. If you're explaining and defending, you're losing. ~ Gerry Spence

If a man is to die defending a field, let the field be his field, the land his land, the people his people. ~ Kamila Shamsie

When we ponder that vast throng who have died honorably defending home and hearth, we contemplate those immortal words, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' The feelings of heartfelt gratitude for the supreme sacrifice made by so many cannot be confined to a Memorial Day, a military parade, or a decorated grave. ~ Thomas S. Monson

Our crosses are our rights ... Because life is not about me, because this world is not my home, because I'm tired of defending myself, and because the God of the universe is my Defender. ~ Jennie Allen

If we move away from the American tradition of lawyers defending those with whom they vehemently disagree
as we temporarily did during the McCarthy period
we weaken our commitment to the rule of law ... So beware of an approach which limits advocacy to that which is approved by the standards of political correctness. ~ Alan Dershowitz

In this night too, in this night of his mortal eyes into which he was now descending, love and danger were again waiting ...
a murmur of glory and hexameters, of men defending a temple the gods will not save, and of black vessels searching the sea for a beloved isle;
the murmor of the Odysseys and Iliads it was his destiny to sing and leave echoing concavely in the memory of man.
These things we know, but not those he felt descending into the last shade of all. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Defending mediocrity is exhausting. ~ Seth Godin

What a difference from words on a page, or images on a video screen. Surrounding him was one of the oldest fortresses in England, where men had died defending the walls, and something was happening. ~ Steve Berry

Burke had little notion of the conditions in which the monarchy he mourned had left us to face our new masters.
The administration of the Ancien Régime had deprived the French in advance of both the ability and the desire to help one another. When the Revolution came, one would have searched in vain in most of France for ten men accustomed to acting together in a disciplined way and defending themselves. The central government alone was supposed to
take charge of defending them all, so that when the royal administration lost control of that central government to a sovereign and unaccountable assembly, and this once complacent body turned terrifying, nothing could stop it or even slow it for a moment. The same cause that had brought the monarchy down so easily made everything possible after its fall. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

Thailand has been dubbed a lustful playground where it is overlooked when a straight male foggily awakes with new tattoos, missing limbs, and a torn anus from a belligerent romp with a transsexual ladyboy. As my shipmates perpetually claimed in defending their infidelities, "Hookers don't count. They're not real people. ~ Maggie Young

Yes, there are plenty of heroes and heroines everywhere you look. They are not famous people. They are generally obscure and modest people doing useful work, keeping their families together and taking an active part in the health of their communities, opposing what is evil (in one way or another) and defending what is good. Heroes do not want power over others. ~ Edward Abbey

Our democracy is not a product but a continual process. It is preserved not by monuments but deeds. Sometimes it needs refining; sometimes it needs amending; sometimes it needs defending. Always, it needs improving. ~ Lee H. Hamilton

Defending yourself is not the same as offending your enemy. Watch what you say. ~ Holly Chamberlin

Relativism emerges as the contemporary supplement of a wish to appear democratic, tolerant and humble about one's ability to grasp the truth. Democracy is perceived as defending the "the right of each person to his or her own viewpoint, so much so, indeed, it seems to imply a tolerance that asks one to relativize one's own positions and to shrink from putting them forward as true ~ Gediminas T. Jankunas

What is wrong with you?" He glared at me.


"I'm somewhat sure I'm suddenly gay," I shrugged, "My father and mother are hypocritical abandoning homophobic assholes. The former defending my chief suspect in the biggest case of my life - something I'm sure you had a hand in. I'm obsessed with your freckles, your bunny slippers and your lips - which I should be getting points for not kissing while you're incapacitated, by the way. I'm dating a whore while working on the vice squad - points to me again for not arresting your ass for that - and I'm ridiculously horny. Oh, and my fiancée won't talk to me. ~ Dani Alexander

Islamic law refers to as "offensive jihad," the forcible expansion into countries that are ruled by non-Muslims. "Hitherto, we were just defending ourselves," Choudary said; without a caliphate, offensive jihad is an inapplicable concept. But the waging of war to expand the caliphate is an essential duty of the caliph. ~ Anonymous

I am one of those scientists who feels that it is no longer enough just to get on and do science. We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organised ignorance. ~ Richard Dawkins

Mahmud's highly mobile army rarely fell below the force of 100,000 that he amassed to attack Balkh in 999.5 In recruiting and deploying his slave soldiers, Mahmud was blind to color, ethnicity, and religion. He did not hesitate, for example, to send Hindu forces against the Turkic, Persian, or Indian armies that were defending Muslim cities. Even his own household consisted mainly of slaves. Far from being constrained by his Muslim faith, Mahmud believed that the highest religious authority, the caliph, had validated his actions and confirmed all the dubious privileges he so freely exercised. ~ S. Frederick Starr

Because, therefore, we are defending a way of life, we must be respectful of that way of life as we proceed to the solution of our problem. We must not violate its principles and its precepts, and we must not destroy from within what we are trying to defend from without. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

You know,' he said as they made their way down the hall, 'I appreciate the support, Scully, but I don't need defending. Not really.'
She looked up at him and sighed. 'Oh yes you do, Mulder.'
He looked back blankly.
'Trust me,' she said, patting his arm. 'On this one you'll have to trust me. ~ Charles Grant

I'm tired of defending my character. I am what I am. What you see is what you get. ~ Dana Plato

Being yourself sounds like a saccharin prescription for how to make it in an aggressive culture but it's not as sweet as it sounds. It means not acting in a way that is false just to fit in. It's expressing your talent, values, and opinions in your style, defending your rights, and never sacrificing yourself respect. That is power. ~ Melinda Gates

Leo stood behind him, his suit coat and tie off, rolling up his sleeves.
"Oh, crap," I said, my voice full of gravel and bigger rocks, grinding over one another. I cleared my throat and tried again. "I'm too old for a spanking and not quite up to defending myself from a butt whupping. Can we do this another time? ~ Faith Hunter

. . . the only legitimate reason that kingship is not attractive to us is because in this age and this world the only kings available are finite and sinful. Listen to C. S. Lewis describe why he believes in democracy:

A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they're not true. . . I find that they're not true without looking further than myself. I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. . . . The real reason for democracy is . . . Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.1

If there could be a king who is not limited in his wisdom and power and goodness and love for his subjects, then monarchy would be the best of all governments. If such a ruler could ever rise in the world - with no weakness, no folly, no sin - then no wise and humble person would ever want democracy again.

The question is not whether God broke into the universe as a king. He did. The question is: What kind of king is he? What difference would his kingship make for you? ~ John Piper

It is interesting that for Plato, and for most Platonists, an altruistic individualism cannot exist. According to Plato, the only alternative to collectivism is egoism; he simply identifies all altruism with collectivism, and all individualism with egoism. This is not a matter of terminology, of mere words, for instead of four possibilities, Plato recognized only two. This has created considerable confusion in speculation on ehtical matters, even down to our own day.

Plato's identification of individualism with egoism furnishes him with a powerful weapon for his defence of collectivism as well as for his attack upon individualism. In defending collectivism, he can appeal to our humanitarian feeling of unselfishness; in his attack, he can brand all individualists as selfish, as incapable of devotion to anything but themselves. This attack, although aimed by Plato against individualism in our sense, i.e. against the rights of human individuals, reaches of course only a very different target, egoism. But this difference is constantly ignored by Plato and by most Platonists...

Individualism was part of the old intuitive idea of justice. That justice is not, as Plato would have it, the health and harmony of the state, but rather a certain way of treating individuals, is emphasized by Aristotle, when he says, 'justice is something that pertains to persons. ~ Karl Popper

We live in a culture in which intelligence is denied relevance altogether, in a search for radical innocence, or is defended as an instrument of authority and repression. In my view, the only intelligence worth defending is critical, dialectical, skeptical, desimplifying. ~ Susan Sontag

As soon as you are born, you're given a name, a religion, a nationality and a race. You spend the rest of your life defining and defending a fictional identity. ~ Brandon Garic Notch

If I win and play well, then the ranking will take care of itself. Defending points is really not a problem. Just go out and play and not worry about it. ~ Pete Sampras

I'm not defending what Cory Booker said. I'm saying I understand why he has to kiss the asses of the rich people on Wall Street, because there's no other way to keep his city afloat. ~ Bill Maher

You need to remember that you are worth defending. You need to have courage, in the moment of attack, to take action. You might not like those actions. Hurting someone else doesn't come naturally to most of us. But in that moment, you need to remember that you have a God-given right to defend yourself and do it unflinchingly. ~ Scarlett Cole

Legislation is the only lasting solution for the men and women brought to this country through no fault of their own who want to perform the ultimate act of patriotism in defending America. ~ Jeff Denham

War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for?" he said.
"Dunno, Sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe?"
"Absol - well, okay."
"Defending yourself against a totalitarian aggressor?"
"All right, I'll grant you that, but - "
"Saving civilization from a horde of - "
"It doesn't do any good in the long run is what I'm saying, Nobby, if you'd listen for five seconds together," said Fred Colon sharply.
"Yeah, but in the long run, what does, Sarge? ~ Terry Pratchett

If we pick a fight, then we're just as bad as them. Combat should be used just to help people who can't defend themselves, period."
"Well, if I don't fight back and they pound on me, then I'm one of the people I should be defending. ~ Tamora Pierce

Never apologize for being over sensitive and emotional when defending the welfare of wildlife.
Let this be a sign that you have a big heart and aren't afraid to show your true feelings.

These emotions give you the strength to fight for what is right and to be the voice of those who cannot be heard. ~ Paul Oxton

I have been defending Israel's right to exist, and to defend itself against terrorism, for many years-on college campuses, in television appearances and in debate. ~ Alan Dershowitz

If you make a mistake as a prosecutor, your mistakes go home, whereas if you make a mistake defending, they go to jail. ~ Lynne Stewart

The enduring responsibility of the United States Air Force is to provide strategic deterrence for the Nation and fly, fight and win as an integral part of the Joint Team. Together with our brothers and sisters in arms, we underwrite the national strategy of defending the Homeland and assuring allies, while dissuading, deterring and defeating enemies. ~ Norton A. Schwartz

Freedom is indivisible. Whites can't enjoy their separate freedoms. They spend too much time and resources defending those freedoms instead of enjoying them. ~ Desmond Tutu

If there is one thing in this wonderful world of ours that is worth preserving, defending, and promoting, it is the White Race. ~ Ben Klassen

Yeah, I know what "off the horse" means. I just can't remember how we got to the point where I'm defending myself against the imaginary accusations of a man who gives hairless rats to neighborhood children, and who apparently trusts the nonexistent squirrel junkies in the attic. ~ Jenny Lawson

Don't waste time and energy defending your idea that could be used pursuing your idea. ~ Bobby Darnell

As commander-in-chief, I will do whatever it takes to defend America. But in defending America, we cannot lose what America stands for. ~ Rand Paul

The one effective method of defending one's own territory from an offensive by air is to destroy the enemy's air power with the greatest possible speed. ~ Giulio Douhet

As a cartoonist, I am not interested in defending the dominant, the powerful, the well-resourced and the well-armed because such groups are usually not in need of advocacy, moral support or sympathetic understanding; they have already organised sufficient publicity for themselves and prosecute their points of view with great efficiency. ~ Michael Leunig

World War II ended in a battle for a single buildng, Germany's Reichstag ... 7,000 German troops defending the building ... Nearly 5,000 men died in a battle for the building. ~ Andrei Cherny

Today a new faith is stirring: the myth of blood, the faith that along with blood we are defending the divine nature of man as a whole. ~ Alfred Rosenberg

If I end my life defending those who need it most, then I will consider it a death well spent. ~ Sarah J. Maas

We can't build a safer world with honorable intentions and good will alone. Achieving the fundamental goals our nation seeks in world affairs - peace, human rights, economics progress national independence and international stability - means supporting our friends and defending our interests. ~ Ronald Reagan

If you believe the world will be a better place because you have both the desire and the means to take charge, that's the time for you to jump in. It doesn't matter if you rise up to take the lead only once or twice in your entire working life or if you do it daily. There are so many moments when you can make a difference--by enriching an outcome, saving a great idea, defending the beleaguered or downtrodden, and not least, expressing your own gifts and wisdom. ~ Charlotte Beers

When I first came to Arsenal, I realised the back four were all university graduates in the art of defending. As for Tony Adams, I consider him to be a doctor of defence. He is simply outstanding. ~ Arsene Wenger

I don't think San Francisco needs defending. I never meet anyone who doesn't love the place, Americans or others. ~ Doris Lessing

The more you had, it seemed to me, the larger your border that needed defending. ~ Richard Russo

No. I am complying with the law - to the letter. Your law holds that my life, my work and my property may be disposed of without my consent. Very well, you mAy now dispose of me without my participation in the matter. I will not play the part of defending myself, where no defense is possible, and I will not simulate the illusion of dealing with a tribunal of justice. ~ Ayn Rand

On issue after issue, the polls - and these are not snapshot polls; these are polls over a consistent period of time - show that most Americans share what one could call core liberal or progressive values: investment in health care and education over tax cuts; fair trade over free trade; corporate accountability over deregulation; environmental protection over laissez-faire policies; defending Social Security and Medicare over privatizing them; raising the minimum wage over eliminating it. The country prefers progressive alternatives to the failed policies of the conservative right. ~ Katrina Vanden Heuvel

The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Republicans has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the rest of us and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them. ~ Garrison Keillor

137 years later, Memorial Day remains one of America's most cherished patriotic observances. The spirit of this day has not changed - it remains a day to honor those who died defending our freedom and democracy. ~ Doc Hastings

The withdrawal of philosophy into a "professional" shell of its own has had disastrous consequences. The younger generation of physicists, the Feynmans, the Schwingers, etc., may be very bright; they may be more intelligent than their predecessors, than Bohr, Einstein, Schrödinger, Boltzmann, Mach and so on. But they are uncivilized savages, they lack in philosophical depth – and this is the fault of the very same idea of professionalism which you are now defending. ~ Paul Karl Feyerabend

We believe that cowardice is to blame for the world's injustices. We believe that peace is hard-won, that sometimes it is necessary to fight for peace. But more than that: We believe that justice is more important than peace. We believe in freedom from fear, in denying fear the power to influence our decisions. We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another. We believe in acknowledging fear and the extent to which it rules us. We believe in facing that fear no matter what the cost to our comfort, our happiness, or even to our sanity. We believe in shouting for those who can only whisper, in defending those who cannot defend themselves. We believe, not in just bold words, but in bold deeds to match them. We believe that pain and death are better than cowardice and inaction because we believe in action. We do not believe in living comfortable lives. We do not believe that silence is useful. We do not believe in good manners. We do not believe in empty heads, empty mouths, or empty hands. We do not believe that learning to master violence encourages unnecessary violence. We do not believe that we should be allowed to stand idly by. We do not believe that any other virtue is more important than bravery. ~ Veronica Roth

I would rather get offended than defending myself, though if it isn't my mistake. Just to see that beautiful smile on your face. ~ Naveed Baji

What America did in Vietnam and the Congo - we feel. And as a result come these demonstrations. I am not defending the act of burning USIS books. We deplore it. But we can understand the motives of the students. ~ Sukarno

Lebanon is caught in a cycle of threats. And it is our duty to be strong and capable of defending our country. But we will not clarify or explain what we do or do not possess. ~ Hassan Nasrallah

To be actively pro-life is to contribute to the renewal of society through the promotion of the common good. It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop. ~ Pope John Paul II

She was a cop, a Homicide lieutenant with eleven years on the job protecting and defending the hard, merciless streets of New York. There was little she hadn't seen, touched, smelled, or waded through. Because people, to her mind, would always and could always find more inventive and despicable ways to kill their fellow man, she knew just what torments could be inflicted on the human body.
But bloody and brutal murder was nothing compared to giving birth. ~ J.D. Robb

There's no point in defending camp if you guys die. All our friends are here. ~ Rick Riordan

I think a man with a helmet defending his country should make more money than a man with a helmet defending a football, don't you think? ~ Haleigh Lovell

All things considered, science is the best means of understanding almost everything around us. It works well on the human scale and stands as a stark counter-point to beliefs that by their very nature refute the notion of evidence. And I would be the last person to attack people encouraging the rest of us to use our ability to be rational, thereby defending the value and the necessity of science. But I will lift a querying hand when the notion of 'science' is held to be immutable, because 'science' as such does not exist. Science is a process to be sure, a way of thinking, but what science is above all is that which scientists do, and alas, scientists are people, too. As potentially fallible, irrational, biased, greedy, in short, as flawed, as the rest of us. So, by all means defend science as a process. But don't confuse it with the very human endeavor of science as a profession. Because they're not the same thing. And this is why when some guy in a white lab-coat says 'you can trust me, I'm a scientist,' best take it with a big bucket of salt, and then say 'Fine, now show me the evidence and more to the point, show me how you got to it. ~ Steven Erikson

5 mins after your birth, they decide your name, nationality, religion & sect & you spend rest of your life defending something you didn't choose. ~ Nilesh Jain

He family motto, after all, is 'To Have and To Hold'. We were always a warrior breed, but we don't fight solely for lands and material wealth. There's an understanding, drummed into all of us from our earliest years, that success-true success-means capturing and holding , something more. That something more is the future-to excel is very well, but one needs to excel and survive. To seize lands is well and good, but we want to hold them for all time. Which means creating and building a family-defending the family that is, and creating the next generation. Because it's the next generation that's our future. Without securing that future, material success is no real success at all. ~ Stephanie Laurens

Secretary Clinton is perfectly capable of defending her own service in office. ~ Martin O'Malley

Yet the point that JFK missed - and that almost everyone else has gone on to miss - is that much of this journalism was devoted to upholding and defending the ideas not of the coming Russian and Chinese or (as Kennedy failed to appreciate at the time) Cuban Revolutions, but of the earlier American one. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Over the years, there have been a series of concepts developed to justify the use of force in international affairs for a long period. It was possible to justify it on the pretext, which usually turned out to have very little substance, that the U.S. was defending itself against the communist menace. By the 1980s, that was wearing pretty thin. ~ Noam Chomsky

I long ago gave up defending humanity. It's beyond me on most days to defend myself. ~ Lionel Shriver

Ask the first man you meet what he means by defending freedom, and he'll tell you privately he means defending the standard of living. ~ Martin Niemoller

Instead of responding to these attacks with a vigorous intellectual counterpunch, many believers grew suspicious of intellectual issues altogether. To be sure, Christians must rely on the Holy Spirit in their intellectual pursuits, but this does not mean they should expend no mental sweat of their own in defending the faith ~ J.P. Moreland

Security is still the most important issue facing Washington state residents and millions of Americans - the security of having a job, of access to affordable health care, of a quality education, and of protecting our homeland and defending our nation. ~ Patty Murray

Damning taxes is a piece of cake. It's defending them that's hard. ~ Jill Lepore

Those who today murdered our people in an ambush not only plotted to murder some Jews but intended to provoke us ... The Arabs stand to gain from such a development. They want the country to be in a state of perpetual pogrom ... Any further bloodshed [by the Jews] will only bring political advantage to the Arabs and harm us ... Our strength is in the defense ... and this strength will give us political victory if England and the world will know that we are defending ourselves rather than attacking. ~ David Ben-Gurion

What is it about her, Duncan?" he said finally. "She fights me at every turn, then nearly dies defending me. She comes more than willingly to my bed, then runs the very next morning. She wants nothing to do with me, and yet I find her ... fascinating. ~ D.B. Reynolds

Defending against military-strength malware is a real challenge for the computer security industry. Furthermore, the security industry is not global. It is highly focused in just a handful of countries. The rest of the countries rely on foreign security labs to provide their everyday digital security for them. ~ Mikko Hypponen

I cannot bring myself to judge those who are defending their lands against an immoral violent foreign invader. The fact that the immoral violent foreign invader happens to be the U.S. government does not alter my view. ~ Dave Champion

As he was
forced to tell his father more than once, "I said I'd fight for my mother's
throne. I never said I'd die for it." Then he'd add, simply to annoy the old
bastard into one of his frothy temper tantrums, "Don't you think I'm too
pretty to die? ~ G.A. Aiken

I didn't realize when I brought him back here that you'd inflict more damage." I said, once I'd finished the story.
"I was defending your honor." Adrian gave me that devil-may-care smile that always managed to both infuriate and captivate me. "Pretty manly, huh? ~ Richelle Mead

Also, as a rule of thumb, if you find yourself defending your inalienable right to make someone else feel like garbage, you're on the wrong side of the argument. ~ Rich Burlew

Little countries do not have this luxury of defending themselves. We have to do it before the fact, not after the fact ~ Charles Taylor

Out popped Paul Duffy, in plain clothes except for a state police windbreaker and a badge clipped to his belt. He looked at me - I think by now I had dropped the bat to my side, at least, though I must have looked ridiculous anyway - and he raised his eyebrows. 'Get back in the house, Babe Ruth. ~ William Landay

In short, he was a dope. Clevinger was one of those people with lots of intelligence and no brains, and everyone knew it except those who soon found it out. In short, he was a dope. He often looked to Yossarian like one of those people hanging around modern museums with both eyes together on one side of a face. It was an illusion, of course, generated by Clevinger's predilection for staring fixedly at one side of a question and never seeing the other side at all. Politically, he was a humanitarian who did know right from left and was trapped uncomfortably between the two. He was constantly defending his Communist friends to his right-wing enemies and his right-wing friends to his Communist enemies, and he was thoroughly detested by both groups, who never defended him to anyone because they thought he was a dope. He was a very serious, very earnest and very conscientious dope. ~ Joseph Heller