Defeat

“ The struggle, the wounds, the defeats we suffer at each other's hands may all be classed under the head of battles,—battles where the ultimate defeat or victory is in our own hands,—in the harm or good done to our souls. ”

“ If the battle has ended in a victory, there will be a tone of joy, of exultation, and of scorn, in what men think and write after it; if it has ended in a defeat, all that is thought and written will be tinged by a deeper and finer sorrow. ”

“ For what man is there who would not wish before all things to conquer in the struggle, or if this be not possible, to die fighting rather than witness the outrage and destruction of all that is dearest to him? Therefore, my men, even without these words of mine, fix your eyes on the difference between defeat and victory and on all that must follow upon either, and enter on this battle as if not your country’s legions but her existence were at stake. ”

“ And e'en in hearts depraved to sin
Some sudden, gracious influence,
May give the long-lost good again,
And wake within the dormant sense
And love of good;—for mortal men,
So but thou strive, thou soon shalt see
Defeat itself is victory. ”

“ What I have never done — fleeing from the battle — well, will that happen today? For fear of defeat shall I retreat from the fight? Defeat is the ornament the hero adorns himself with. What, to acknowledge defeat without fighting! ”

“ For it has never been with us, "Come, see, and conquer," as if victory were an easy thing and a common. We have known what it is to toil for the salvation of some little life, and we have known the bitterness of defeat. ”

“ Thronging after the laurel-crowned victors, I stand on the field of defeat,
In the shadow, with those who are fallen, and wounded, and dying, and there
Chant a requiem low, place my hand on their pain-knotted brows, breathe a prayer,
Hold the hand that is helpless, and whisper, "They only the victory win,
Who have fought the good fight and have vanquished the demon that tempts us within ”

“ Victory begets hatred; defeat begets suffering. They that are wise will forgo both victory and defeat. Insult is born of insult, anger of anger. They that are wise will forgo both victory and defeat. Every murderer is struck down by a murderer; every conqueror is struck down by a conqueror. They that are wise will forgo both victory and defeat. ”

“ Was retreat ever thought disgraceful, when the superior numbers and resistless good fortune of the foe made all further struggle useless? Does not history, ancient and modern, abound with examples of famous warriors who have magnanimously endured defeat, and reserved themselves to the hour of future victory? ”

“ Some shall assail it, and fall even in the hour of victory. Some shall subdue it, and, after years of glory, shall see the brightness of their fame tarnished with shame, defeat, and overthrow, with long and weary inactivity, and lingering death. But thou shalt listen to the voice of warning; thou shalt fear the name of God, and the word of God's servant, and shall turn thee back, and escape the peril of disobedience. ”

“ A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem -- a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success. ”

“ Amid the turmoil and tumult of battle, there may be seeming disorder and yet no real disorder at all; amid confusion and chaos, your array may be without head or tail, yet it will be proof against defeat. ”

“ We must acknowledge—we must recognize the Chastening Hand which is dealing with us. Where is the victory which has ever yet, as a people, sent us to our knees? Where the defeat which has ever yet been attributed to any but secondary causes? ”

“ Defeat is bitter when it comes swiftly and conclusively, but when defeat falls by inches like the fatal pendulum in the pit, the agony is a little out of reach of words to define. It was even so. I remember the first day of my martyrdom. The clocks were striking eight; we chose our places, got into position. After the first hour, I compared my drawing with Marshall's. ”

“ In one attack which we repulsed I am conservative when I say that they were lying dead and wounded three and four deep and yet they attacked again and again without faltering, only to be driven back to defeat in the end. ”

“ After half an hour’s fighting in terrible earnest, in which each side had exchanged many a well-aimed blow, and had shown prodigies of skill, valour, and swiftness, many of the gladiators had fallen, and others dropped their arms in sign of defeat. ”

“ A people, haggard with defeat,
Asks if there be a God; yet sets its teeth,
Faces calamity, and goes into the fire
Another than it was. And in wild hours
A people, roaring ripe
With victory, rises, menaces, stands renewed,
Sheds its old piddling aims,
p. 112Approves its virtue, puts behind itself
The comfortable dream, and goes,
Armoured and militant,
New-pithed, new-souled, new-visioned, up the steeps
To those great altitudes, whereat the weak
Live not. But only the strong
Have leave to strive, and suffer, and achieve. ”

“ The battle being fought and lost, it is your first duty to do away the moral effect of defeat,—the want of that self-respect and self-confidence, which are its immediate followers, and which, so long as they last, are the most powerful auxiliaries of your enemy. ”

“ It is defeat that turns bone to flint, and gristle to muscle, and makes men invincible, and formed those heroic natures that are now in ascendancy in the world. Do not, then, be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.—Henry Ward Beecher. ”

“ Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong; Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat. Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself. ”

“ It is not a field of a few acres of ground, but a cause, that we are defending, and whether we defeat the enemy in one battle, or by degrees, the consequences will be the same. ”

“ What we call victory and defeat are incidents—things individual and temporal. The thing universal and eternal is this immortality of the spirit of victory. Why, every time I look at that grip on the broken sword,"—laughing now, but eyes shining—"I can feel the world take a bound ahead!"
CHAPTER VII ERNESTINE IN HER STUDIO The next morning she went to work. ”

“ CLEINIAS:...Moreover, there is a victory and defeat—the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats—which each man gains or sustains at the hands, not of another, but of himself; ”

“ Now, victory inspires men with additional courage: with defeat their morale disappears. And these three defeats at Lung-hsi have left the inhabitants utterly demoralised, with never a ray of hope for the future. ”

“ In reality, I have been doubly defeated by the foe. They for whose sake we have incurred the sin of victory by slaying our kinsmen and friends, alas, they, after victory had crowned them, have been vanquished by defeated foes that were heedful! Alas, through heedlessness have they been slain that had escaped from even Karna, that warrior who had barbed arrows and nalikas for his teeth, the sword for his tongue, the bow for his gaping mouth, and the twang of the bowstring and the sound of palms for his roars—that angry Karna who never retreated from battle, and who was a very lion among men! ”

“ The defeat, little as you may have wished it, has done us more good than evil. You have rekindled the torch of our idealism, have given a fresh impetus to our science, and have reanimated our faith.... We owe to you the reawakening of our racial conscience.... Picture the young Frenchmen who were born in houses of mourning under the shadow of defeat ”

“ But who is ready for the struggle, and how shall we be able to encounter our foes? Left to ourselves and to our own resources, we shall surely go down in defeat. The opposing forces are too gigantic, too numerous. ”

“ If plans are conceived which may expedite the completion of our armies, for increasing our means of conquest, or of making our defeats less disastrous, why are they preceded to the throne by calumny and there stifled by the most perfidious malevolence? Can it be true that our triumphs are dreaded? ”

“ They accepted defeat as the inevitable. Their statement was that they fought to gain the respect of the Loard-vogh only; they did not hope to win. This I cannot understand. If you know that you cannot win, why fight? ”

“ Defeat brings dishonour. The nearer nations, such as Edomites, Ammonites, and other ancestral foes, are ready with their gibes. The more distant peoples make a proverb out of the tragedy, and nod their heads in triumph and scorn. ”

“ "Defeat furnishes good material to the poets and the artists, but none of us care to have the glory of the conquered apply to us." ”

“ To try to represent action without the immediate changes of position and expression which are its most essential features, seems like courting defeat, and to a certain extent defeat does invariably follow the attempt to treat very violent rapid action except loosely and sketchily. ”

“ Man dies, but glory lives!—Fight on—death is better than defeat!—Fight on, brave knights! for bright eyes behold your deeds!" ”

“ To do that would mean, not merely to be defeated, but to acknowledge defeat—and the difference between these two things is what keeps the world going. ”

“ There is my opponent, I ll thrash him if I can ; better to toil out my life-blood drop by drop than let it mount to my cheek as a mantle of shame when I find myself defeated when I might have been victorious. ”

“ Those who are conquered are forced into their army; what is more, they are put in the forefront of the battle, in the place of greatest danger, and they are driven forward, or [Pg 112] murdered if they attempt to escape! So, with danger before and behind, the miserable wretches fight with all the strength of despair; the victors share the spoil, and those who are defeated have nothing to expect but death any way, and sometimes a death of fearful torture too. ”

“ The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. ”

“ "In any case you mustn't confuse a single failure with a final defeat." ”

“ There must be a victor, or Earth is lost entirely. One more mass strato-attack with L-bombs and.... Well, at any rate—there must, as you can readily understand, be a victor, and soon. Obviously, the Others must be defeated. ”

“ Again and again, he tells her, he has gone out in hope, and each time in the confidence that victory would be his, and each time he has come back defeated, his men killed, and his people to sink lower after each despair than the time before. ”

“ And to the weapons of advancing foes
A stubborn breast oppose:
Undaunted 'mid the hostile might
Of squadrons burning for the fight
Thine be no boasting when the victor's crown
Wins thee deserved renown;
Thine no dejected sorrow, when defeat
Would urge a base retreat;
Rejoice in joyous things—nor overmuch
Let grief thy bosom touch
'Midst evil, and still bear in mind
How changeful are the ways of humankind.
—Archilochos, tr. by William Hay. ———
GOD'S PEACE
Grant us Thy peace, down from thy presence falling,
As on the thirsty earth cool night-dews sweet ”