generally all evils which are distant most powerfully alarm men's minds. Caesar, Julius. Caesar's Commentaries The Conquest of Gaul & The...

People long ago generally paid homage to the gods in the hope that the gods would confer benefits on them, but they worshiped Febris in...

Death is not the monarch of the dead, but of the dying. The moment he obtains a conquest he loses a subject, and, like the foolish King...

But Bonaparte held the liberty of the press in the greatest horror; and so violent was his passion when anything was urged in its favour...

On arriving before Jaffa, where there were already some troops, the first person I met was Adjutant-General Gresieux, with whom I was...

Who does not remember Oxenstiern’s remark to his son, who trembled at going so young to the congress of Munster: “Go, my son. You will...

George Washington: Address to the Continental Congress, June 16, 1775: “Mr. President, Tho’ I am truly sensible of the high Honour done...

Come now, tell me truly.” Artabanos answered him, “Sire, may the vision that appeared in that dream be fulfilled in accordance with what...

Then, in my particular case, I had been at West Point at about the right time to meet most of the graduates who were of a suitable age at...

For kings feel threatened more by good men than bad, and the merit of others always arouses fear in them. Sallust. Sallust, The War with...

…even if we fail, those who make an effort to get to the top will climb higher than those who from the start despair of emerging where...

Villeneuve left this anchorage about August 12th, when he had 34 vessels, counting those of Lallemande. Left master of the sea he could...

But to disregard death is a lesson which must be studied from our youth up; for unless that is learnt, no one can have a quiet mind. For...

When someone remarked that the Chiefs of Staff system was a good one, he commented: ‘Not at all. It leads to weak and faltering decisions – or rather indecisions. Why, you may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman, or the most audacious soldier; put them at a table together – what do you get? The sum total of their fears!’

CAIUS MARIUS was a wise general:

Antigonus, we know, at least, had a soldier, a venturous fellow, but of wretched health and constitution; the reason of whose ill-look he took the trouble to inquire into; and, on understanding from him that it was a disease, commanded his physicians to employ their utmost skill, and if possible recover him; which brave hero, when once cured, never afterwards sought danger or showed himself venturous in battle; and, when Antigonus wondered and upbraided him with his change, m

Solon went, they say, to Thales, at Miletus, and wondered that Thales took no care to get him a wife and children. To this, Thales made no answer for the present; but a few days after procured a stranger to pretend that he left Athens ten days ago; and Solon inquiring what news there, the man, according to his instructions, replied, “None but a young man’s funeral, which the whole city attended; for he was the son, they said, of an honourable man, the most virtuous of the cit

Within the Hellespont we saw where the original first shoddy contract mentioned in history was carried out, and the “parties of the second part” gently rebuked by Xerxes. I speak of the famous bridge of boats which Xerxes ordered to be built over the narrowest part of the Hellespont (where it is only two or three miles wide.) A moderate gale destroyed the flimsy structure, and the King, thinking that to publicly rebuke the contractors might have a good effect on the next set,

Orville Browning, who considered the proclamation a fatal mistake, warned Lincoln that recruiting new volunteers would be nearly impossible and that "an attempt to draft would probably be made the occasion of resistance to the government." Browning had talked with some friends upon their return from the front, where they had "conversed with a great many soldiers, all of whom expressed the greatest dissatisfaction, saying they had been deceived‑‑that the(y) volunteered to figh

In the same year Tacfarinas, whose defeat in the previous summer by Marcus Furius Camillus I have recorded, resumed hostilities. After nomad raids - too swift for reprisals - he began destroying villages and looting extensively. Finally, he encircled a Roman regular battalion near the river Pagyda. The energetic and experienced commander of the fort, Decrius, considered the siege a disgrace, and ordered his men to fight in the open, forming line in front of the camp. The batt

From Robert Louis Stevenson, one of the sweetest English authors, comes a story. There was a ship in a violent, stormy sea being driven against the rocks. Any moment it might be dashed to pieces. The passengers in the ship were huddled together in terror, facing certain death. In the agony of that moment one of the men said, “I am going up to the pilot’s house and see the pilot.” He made his way up and up and up, and finally to the pilot’s house. There he found the pilot, cha

The taking of two redoubts enabled the allied troops to outfit them with howitzers and finish the second parallel trench. As Hamilton and Henry Knox inspected the captured redoubt, they engaged in an academic controversy that afforded a humorous interlude. Washington had given orders that whenever soldiers spotted a shell, they should exclaim, "A shell!" Hamilton didn't think this order soldierly, whereas Knox thought it reflected Washington's prudent regard for his men's wel

Custer prayed, “inwardly, devoutly,” as he had informed Libbie in a letter five days earlier. “Never have I failed to command myself to God’s keeping,” he wrote, “asking Him to forgive my past sins, and to watch over me while in danger . . . and to receive me if I fell . . . After having done so all anxiety for myself, here or hereafter, is dispelled. I feel that my destiny is in the hands of the Almighty. This belief, more than any other fact or reason, makes me brave and fe

Experience of a solider on D-Day: