Famous quotes containing the words years, war, french and/or victory:
“When Prince William [later King William IV] was at Cork in 1787, an old officer ... dined with him, and happened to say he had been forty years in the service. The Prince with a sneer asked what he had learnt in those forty years. The old gentleman justly offended, said, “Sir, I have learnt, when I am no longer fit to fight, to make as good a retreat as I can” —and walked out of the room.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“A nice war is a war where everybody who is heroic is a hero, and everybody more or less is a hero in a nice war. Now this war is not at all a nice war.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The French are certainly misunderstood:Mbut whether the fault is theirs, in not sufficiently explaining themselves; or speaking with that exact limitation and precision which one would expect ... or whether the fault may not be altogether on our side ... I shall not decide.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“In victory be not proud; in defeat be not depressed.”
—Chinese proverb.