Superior force

“ What then will happen, unless you have the surest moral training for foundation? The force which rouses up the highest in you, rouses up also the lowest; and there must be battle-royal and victory at last, or surrender to hell. ”

“ The super-men will use and direct the force and instincts of 'the herd'—even the capacities of kings, soldiers, law-givers, {121} and administrators—to make the world a fit place for their own development. ”

“ You represent a force in modern society; we also represent a force—a new force. Without anger or malice, we have closed in battle. As you will readily discern, we are simply a business proposition. You are the upper, and we the nether, millstone ”

“ Let us rather consider what is meant by the word force, as an element in the conflict of communities. Force, in the human creature, is of two kinds, moral and physical; and in war, as Napoleon himself said, the moral is to the physical as four to one. What is this moral force? It is an indefinable consciousness of superiority. ”

“ With what an air of conscious power; of evident mastery of all that might confront them; of calm, unflinching determination for the conflict, those men moved and acted. They felt themselves part of a mighty machine, that had its work before it, and would move with resistless force to perform the appointed task. ”

“ Force was required, and has done its work in successfully resisting aggression by military states now humbled and dismembered. But Force is a weapon with a double edge, and plays no part in human progress. ”

“ You will know, after having vanquished your adversary by force of arms, how to impress him further by the dignity of your attitude, and the world will not know which to admire most, your conduct in success or your heroism in fighting. ”

“ The word 'force' in the last sentence shows the transition. Undoubtedly force in the sense of physical and military force has had a great influence in the formation both of religions and nations. We may say that such force is 'essential'; as a proof of the energy and often as a condition of the durability of the institutions. ”

“ There is therefore but one response possible from us. Force, Force to the utmost, Force without stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant Force which shall make Right the law of the world, and cast every selfish Dominion down in the dust. ”

“ OUR ENJOYMENT OF NATURE'S FORCES
We are a fighting race; not because we enjoy fights, but we enjoy the exercise of force. In early times when we knew of no forces to handle but our own, and no object to exercise them on but our fellow-men, there were feuds, tyrannies, wars, and general desolation. ”

“ Does the perfect form convey something of the same thing that physical force—an army in arms, a battleship—conveys? In any case it was there, that inherent masterfulness, though not in its highest form. ”

“ Three principal influences combine to assist men in their attempts: preparation, vanity and sentiment. The first includes all the force of discipline and training. The soldier has for years contemplated the possibility of being under fire. ”

“ It was the figure in which brute force seems so to predominate that in a savage state it would have worn a crown,—the figure which secures command and authority in all societies where force alone gives the law. ”

“ They were to carry with them a double force—a force of coercion, visible and palpable; a force addressed to conscience, neither visible nor palpable, and in its nature only capable of being inwardly appreciated. ”

“ I would affirm, even to repetition, that there is given us that high and stern power, which implies a courage superior to any conflict, and which gives the mind a complete ascendency over any danger, pain or torture, which belongs to life or death. ”

“ The ultimate power to command must rest with that authority which, if necessary, can force people to obey; and any plan of association which seeks to ignore the part which physical force plays in life is necessarily incomplete. ”

“ Do not separate your force too much; if you do, you weaken yourself—you take the chance of being "defeated in detail"—that is, of one part being defeated after another. Remember the old saying: "In union there is strength." ”

“ The force, the courage, the self-poise she exhibited in the ordinary concerns of our peaceful life would in a masculine frame have made, in times of national peril, a patriot of the most decided and energetic character—one able and willing to believe all things possible, and to make all the efforts and sacrifices by which impossibilities are accomplished. ”

“ We discover its superiority in the certainty of its final success. Arms may fail for want of discipline and skill: wisdom has drilled her soldiers, teaching their hands to war and their fingers to fight. Arms may fail for want of strength to wield them: wisdom girdeth us with strength unto the battle ”

“ Arms triumph by physical force and energy: wisdom prevails by the persuasiveness of truth, the gentleness of charity, the beauty of holiness, and the spirit of the Lord. The soldier seeks the aid of science and strategy: wisdom adheres to the simplicity of the gospel, repudiating all art, concealment, disingenuous trickery, such as false colors, masked batteries, treacherous ambuscades, and challenges its enemies with an honest front upon the open field. ”

“ Furthermore, within the fighting body certain qualities are of supreme importance. Such are loyalty and obedience to leaders, respect for superiors, comradeship and helpfulness, interest in the fate or welfare of one's companions. Finally, endurance, courage, fortitude, spirit of self-sacrifice, contempt for danger, hatred of the enemy, rage, war-like spirit, fierceness and even cruelty are precious in the shock of battle. ”

“ It is not by sanguinary conflicts in which victory turns on superior numbers, superior arms, and superior cunning in military tactics, that a nation’s greatness is built up at this period of the world’s history. ”

“ The force implied in this may be described as love-force, soul-force, or, more popularly but less accurately, passive resistance. This force is indestructible. He who uses it perfectly understands his position. We have an ancient proverb which literally means “One negative cures thirty-six diseases.” The force of arms is powerless when matched against the force of love or the soul. ”

“ Yet not the strategy of our leader, nor our courage, but Thy great mercy has given us the victory. Lord, who are we, that we dare to stand before Thee as soldiers, and that our enemies yield and fly before us? ”

“ Imagine this vast, vast throng of boys of a hundred races, this immense movement of which you form a part, and think, if this movement were to cease, humanity would fall back into barbarism; this movement is the progress, the hope, the glory of the world. Courage, then, little soldier of the immense army. Your books are your arms, your class is your squadron, the field of battle is the whole earth, and the victory is human civilization. ”

“ A universally victorious and all-powerful force would be identical with Divine force and should, therefore, be obeyed and honored in the same degree. Justice and force, moreover, belong to two different worlds—the natural and the spiritual. ”

“ Our little army must be sui generis in discipline and equipment, and the question simply is, how many of you will prove to possess, in addition to your high scholastic attainments, the unselfishness, moral courage, self-control, and active spirit of benevolence which are essential in all who should enlist? ”

“ Where lies the power, there let the blame lie too. 2d Gent. Nay, power is relative; you cannot fright The coming pest with border fortresses, Or catch your carp with subtle argument. All force is twain in one: cause is not cause Unless effect be there; and action’s self Must needs contain a passive. So command Exists but with obedience. ”

“ We were a self-centred army without parade or gesture, devoted to freedom, the second of man’s creeds, a purpose so ravenous that it devoured all our strength, a hope so transcendent that our earlier ambitions faded in its glare. ”

“ All the elements whose aid man calls in, will sometimes become his masters, especially those of most subtle force. ”

“ In the person of the first was normally embodied the force paramount over all others in the country, and on him was laid a weight of responsibility and toil so tremendous, that his function seems always to border upon the superhuman ”

“ We confess its superiority in the character of its achievements. With arms men conquer inferiors or equals: through wisdom they overcome beings vastly greater than themselves—greater in number, in nature, in knowledge, in cunning, in courage, in energy, in endurance, in all the facilities and resources of warfare, except such as are furnished by the grace of God. With arms we vanquish human enemies: through wisdom, superhuman. With arms we vanquish external enemies: through wisdom, internal. With arms we vanquish visible enemies: through wisdom, invisible. ”

“ The natural formation of the country is the soldier’s best ally; but a power of estimating the adversary, of controlling the forces of victory, and of shrewdly calculating difficulties, dangers and distances, constitutes the test of a great general.
22. He who knows these things, and in fighting puts his knowledge into practice, will win his battles. He who knows them not, nor practices them, will surely be defeated. ”

“ The impulse towards a great battle, the voluntary, sure progress to it, must proceed from a feeling of innate power and a clear sense of the necessity; in other words, it must proceed from inborn courage and from perceptions sharpened by contact with the higher interests of life. ”

“ The first principle which ought to be inculcated and impressed upon the mind of every officer and soldier is obedience to all lawful commands. It is the main spring, the soul and essence, of military duty. ”

“ An army has two main factors of strength—that is, two main material factors apart from the moral factors of courage, discipline, habit, and relationship. These two material factors are first its numbers, and secondly its supply. ”

“ Force, Force, everywhere Force; we ourselves a mysterious Force in the centre of that. "There is not a leaf rotting on the highway but has Force in it; how else could it rot?" ”

“ Each man must do all in his power for his country.’ The Stars and Stripes never floated more proudly than they did at that moment. All was silent beneath them, save the occasional order from an officer, or the low sound of the movement of our implements of war. Every man stood firm to his post. ”

“ The principle on which to manage an army is to set up one standard of courage which all must reach. ”

“ Not only these beings who are dimly revealed to us as rational and intelligent, who 'excel in strength,' because they 'hearken to the voice of His word', but in the ranks of that great army are also embattled all the forces of the universe, and all things living or dead. ”

“ And the powers of the human intellect are rarely more strongly displayed than they are in the commander who regulates, arrays, and wields at his will these masses of armed disputants; who, cool, yet daring in the midst of peril, reflects on all, and provides for all, ever ready with fresh resources and designs, as the vicissitudes of the storm of slaughter require. But these qualities, however high they may appear, are to be found in the basest as well as in the noblest of mankind. ”

“ The general who commands armies, and by chance wins great battles, is no more deserving a monumental tribute than the man who discovers new means for the more rapid advancement of knowledge, or the man who extends the highway of civilization. ”

“ It does not make a pretty picture, that doctrine of the supremacy of strength, the survival of the fit, the extermination of the weak—it does not make a pretty picture when you reduce it to terms of the physical. ”

“ Now the art of war, more than any other, must be a separate craft; and the soldier's profession requires not only a natural aptitude, but the study of a lifetime. How shall we choose those who are to be our Guardians? ”

“ In speaking of simple duty I cannot help thinking of military life, and the examples it offers to combatants in this great struggle. He would little understand his soldier's duty who, the army once beaten, should cease to brush his garments, polish his rifle, and observe discipline. ”

“ Happily they were able to regulate their own lives and thus regulate the lives of all mankind.
"By nourishment of physical courage, the sense of fear may be so eliminated that a man will, single-handed, brave a whole army. ”