A System
Everything is connected;
All things related;
The living and the dead;
The animate and the inanimate;
A system;
All power functioning to serve the whole.
Source: – Chani, explaining the origins of Spice to Muad’ Dib. Frank Herbert’s Dune (Sci-Fi TV Miniseries).
Absolute Security
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.
Source: -Dwight D. Eisenhower
All The Facts
Sometimes paranoia is just having all the facts.
Source: – William S. Burroughs
Be Very Careful
You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.
Source: – Yogi Berra
Bushy Tail
Captain Blood: “Hagthorpe, do we have an English battle flag aboard?”
Hagthorpe: “We have every manner of battle flag, including a lady’s purple petticoat.”
Captain Blood: “Wait. I’ve a better idea: When an English lion sneaks up on French foxes, it does well to wear a bushy tail. Hoist the French flag.”
Source: – Dr. Peter Blood, the climax, at the battle at Port Royal. Captain Blood, Republic Pictures, 1935.
Daily Trivia
In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.
Source: – Robert A. Heinlein
Delicate Souls
Delicate souls can’t handle too much reality.
Source: – T.S. Elliot
Democracy
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
Source: – H.L. Mencken
Doctrine
Time-tested techniques, applied to a tactical situation.
Source: – A Training NCO from the 101st Airborne Division. Camp Grayling, Michigan, USA. 1995.
Duty
Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
Source: – Robert A. Heinlein’s Lazarus Long.
Duty – Honor – Country
Duty – Honor – Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.
Source: Address by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur to the Corps of Cadets accepting the Thayer Award, May 12, 1962.
Economic and Political Means
There are two fundamentally opposed means whereby man, requiring sustenance, is impelled to obtain the necessary means for satisfying his desires. These are work and robbery, one’s own labor and the forcible appropriation of the labor of others.… I propose … to call one’s own labor and the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the labor of others, the “economic means” for the satisfaction of needs, while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the “political means.”
Source: The State. Franz Oppenheimer. Fox & Wilkes (January 1997)
Education
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
Source: – Mark Twain
Enlightened Self-Interest
The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements. Energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.
Source: – G’Kar. J. Michael Straczynski’s Babylon Five Series. 1994.
Enough Said
Delenn: “John Sheridan was a good, kind, and decent man.”
Dr. Jim Latimere: “Delenn, wait! You came all this way just to say that?”
Delenn: “You came just this far to say less?”
Source: – Delenn and Dr. Jim Latimere in the “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars” episode of J. Michael Straczynski’s Babylon 5 Series. 1994.