Creveld Quotes

#1. The fate of Syria hangs in the balance, but it is entirely possible that the fall of the Assad regime will result in anarchy and cause Syria to turn into a second Afghanistan, a base for anti-Israel terrorism.

Martin Van Creveld

#2. I'm single but interviewing.

Billy Joel

#3. The enemy resembles us. Therefore, he needs to be approached not as an assembly of 'targets' to be destroyed one by one; but as a living, intelligent entity capable of acting and reacting.

Martin Van Creveld

#4. 'Never' is too much of a word. Nothing lasts forever.

Martin Van Creveld

#5. Except when war is waged in a desert, noncombatants, also known as civilians or 'the people,' constitute the great majority of those affected.

Martin Van Creveld

#6. A world without war is not in the cards.

Martin Van Creveld

#7. As history since Hiroshima shows, the best, perhaps the only, way to curb war is to deter it with such overwhelming force as to turn it from a struggle into suicide.

Martin Van Creveld

#8. Emancipation from error is the condition of real knowledge.

Henri Frederic Amiel

#9. 'American Sniper' is a movie. War is a grim reality and with us still.

Mike Barnicle

#10. War is the greatest fun man can have with his pants on.

Martin Van Creveld

#11. Recipe for a long life: Only smoke while awake. Only run when being chased.

Mark Twain

#12. I come from an interracial family: My father is from Nigeria, and so he is African-American, and my mother is American and white, so I rarely see skin color. It's never an issue for me.

Annie Ilonzeh

#13. Since 2006, when the Second Lebanon War killed perhaps 2,000 Lebanese, many of them civilians, and led to the destruction of an entire section of Beirut, the northern border has been absolutely quiet.

Martin Van Creveld

#14. Obviously, we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons and I don't know if they're developing them, but if they're not developing them, they're crazy.

Martin Van Creveld

#15. It is simply not true that war is solely a means to an end, nor do people necessarily fight in order to obtain this objective or that. In fact, the opposite is true: people very often take up one objective or another precisely in order that they may fight.

Martin Van Creveld

#16. Our armed forces are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that this will happen before Israel goes under.

Martin Van Creveld

#17. I have always really liked creating family entertainment, and Disney does that really well.

Teri Hatcher

#18. Yes, testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to get a woman in this world might be desperate enough to go for 72 private virgins in the next.

Richard Dawkins

#19. A dead man fell from the sky, landing at my feet with a thud.

Gary Corby

#20. I want to put any number of assorted 'ists' - such as relativists, deconstructionists, destructivists, postmodernists, the more maudlin kind of pacifists and feminists - firmly in their place.

Martin Van Creveld

#21. Though hand-to-hand combat has become rare, much modern warfare continues to involve physical strain such as those who have not engaged in it can scarcely imagine.

Martin Van Creveld

#22. The combination of professionalism and technology may also result in narrow-minded specialization more suited to a debating society than to an organization whose task it is to cope with, and indeed live in, the dangerous and uncertain environment of war.

Martin Van Creveld

#23. Wisdom tolerates blustered opinions, the better to dismiss them later with discovery.

John Pipkin

#24. We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets of our air force.

Martin Van Creveld

#25. Assuming China does not become destabilized and continues to grow, it will no doubt develop a military program in proportion to its resources.

Martin Van Creveld

#26. Sun Tzu does not need my praise. His work has lived for over two thousand years, and will surely live for another two thousand without any help from me.

Martin Van Creveld

#27. If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are a scoundrel ... if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot.

Martin Van Creveld

#28. India is one of the world's largest and most peaceful states with advanced nuclear technologies and has been isolated from the rest of the world on nuclear issues.

Henry Paulson

#29. American people are very patriotic, but there is no driver to get behind and support. I don't see why Formula One cannot be something America is a part of. I wouldn't say it's too European at all.

Alexander Rossi

#30. In Tunisia, the so-called Yasmin revolution has led to the installation of a relatively moderate Islamic government. Whether or not that means democracy will, however, only be put to the test if and when the time comes for another election, which the opposition may win.

Martin Van Creveld

#31. The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself.

Martin Van Creveld

#32. If you are strong, and you are fighting the weak for any period of time, you are going to become weak yourself. If you behave like a coward, then you are going to become cowardly - it's only a question of time.

Martin Van Creveld

#33. That is the one thing in my public career that I regret
my work to secure the enactment of the Federal Reserve Law.

William Jennings Bryan

#34. In the future as in the past, both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu will undoubtedly have a lot to offer.

Martin Van Creveld

#35. I asked him, 'If I had died when I fell from that tree, would I wake up in the Kingdom, freed, like they say?' And do you know what he told me, Miss Pancake? He said, 'The Kingdom of the Father is upon the land, and men do not see it.

Brett Williams

#36. Thus knowing oneself is no less, and may be more, of a requirement than understanding the enemy.

Martin Van Creveld

#37. four men who do not know each other will hesitate to confront a lion. But once they know each other and feel they can trust each other they will do so without fear.

Martin Van Creveld

#38. Few today believe that engaging in wrestling, boxing, or even much more violent combat sports such as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) will help prepare either them as individuals or their nations for eventual armed conflict.

Martin Van Creveld

#39. It's easier to change directions while you're still moving.

Debra Winger

#40. Place yourself ... You are either a.) part of the problem; b.) part of the solution, or c.) part of the landscape.

James D. Sass