A straight fight in an equal battle takes some bravery, but braver is he who, knowing that he would have to sacrifice ninety-five as against five of the enemy, faces death.
I am not one who, to quote an American author, believes that democracy and enterprise have finally won the battle of ideas - that we have therefore arrived at the end of history, and there is nothing left to fight for. That would be unutterably complacent, indeed foolish. There will always be threats to freedom, not only from frontal assaults, but more insidiously by erosion from within.
If you want to have a life that is worth living, a life that expresses your deepest feelings and emotions, and cares and dreams, you have to fight for it.
Sometimes we take somebody who's been in the trenches and fought the good fight and been steady for granted. Sometimes we act as if never having done something and not knowing what you're doing is a virtue.
Out of this pack-persecution he learned two important things: how to take care of himself in a mass-fight against him; and how, on a single dog, to inflict the greatest amount of damage in the briefest space of time.
In Iraq we are fighting against men with blind hatred and armed with lethal weapons who are capable of any atrocity. They wear no uniform; they respect no laws of warfare or morality. They take innocent lives to create chaos for the cameras.
My trainer don't tell me nothing between rounds. I don't allow him to. I fight the fight. All I want to know is did I win the round. It's too late for advice.
The Pekes and the Pollicles, everyone knows, Are proud and implacable, passionate foes; It is always the same, wherever one goes. And the Pugs and the Poms, although most people say that they do not like fighting, will often display Every symptom of wanting to join in the fray. And they Bark bark bark bark bark bark Until you can hear them all over the park.
I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the road blocks that stand in our path. I'm not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight. I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.
We Americans have many grave problems to solve, many threatening evils to fight, and many deeds to do, if, as we hope and believe, we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage and the virtue to do them. But we must face facts as they are. We must neither surrender ourselves to a foolish optimism, nor succumb to a timid and ignoble pessimism.
I hope people appreciate Chancellor Merkel because, although she traditionally is considered center-right and I'm considered center-left, the truth is that we share those core values, and those are worth protecting. As the senior leader in Europe, as the leader who's been longest lasting, I think she has great credibility, and she is willing to fight for those values. I'm glad that she's there, and I think the German people should appreciate her. Certainly, I have appreciated her as a partner.
To know how to distinguish the agitation arising from covetousness, from the agitation arising from principles, to fight the one and aid the other, in this lies the genius and the power of great revolutionary leaders.