Quotations

Superiority lies with he who is reared in the severest school.
-Thucydides

Determination can get you far in life, even if you suck.
-Me

You know those days where you can’t imagine things getting any worse? You aren’t imagining hard enough.
-Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs)

I’m dead, but if you’re reading this, you’re not, so take a moment to enjoy that happy fact.
-Major Andrew Olmsted, KIA 080103

Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn’t worry about what workout to do – his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about ‘how hard it is;’ he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn’t go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.
Still want to quit?
-NousDefionsDoc of Professional Soldiers

As an archer aims an arrow, as a carpenter carves wood, the wise shape their lives.
-The Dhammapada

Become what you are.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

The mathematicians subject is the most curious of all – there is none in which truth plays such odd pranks.
-G.H. Hardy

Time served doesn’t guarantee good judgement. A resume doesn’t guarantee good character.
-Barak Obama

Marines I see as two breeds, Rottweilers or Dobermans, because Marines come in two varieties, big and mean, or skinny and mean. They’re aggressive on the attack and tenacious on the defense. They’ve got really short hair and always go for the throat.
-RAdm “Jay” R. Stark, USN, 10 Nov. 1995

The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.
-Thomas Paine

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.
-Eleanor Roosevelt

The most important ingredient in any expert system is knowledge.
-Bruce G. Buchanon, Randall Davis, & Edward A. Feigenbaum

An army can win while it still has legs under it; the real test comes when all strength is fled and the men must produce victory on will alone.
-Spartans

Training exercises in Roman legions were bloodless battles — so that their battles were bloody exercises. Equivalently, Train in bloodless battles to fight bloody exercises.
-Unknown

Today is the death of yesterday.
-Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

Doctrine is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
-Gen. James Mattis, USMC

Of all religions the Christian is without doubt the one which should inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
-Voltaire

Things may come to those who wait, but only things left by those who hustle.
-Abraham Lincoln

You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
-Vice Admiral Jim Stockdale

The trouble with cyclists is that their training establishment keeps reinforcing the silly bullshit that all recreational athletes want to believe: at some point, all serious athletes go outside their sport-specific work to improve, and recreational athletes just want to play their sport and wear the clothes.
-Mark Rippetoe

Never forget that you are an animal. Perhaps more evolved than some but an animal nonetheless.
-Me