If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too. And when a nation has to fight for its freedom, it can only hope to win if it possesses certain qualities: honesty, courage, loyalty, vision and self-sacrifice. If it does not possess them, it has only itself to blame if it loses its freedom.

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) English novelist and playwright [William Somerset Maugham]

Strictly Personal, § 30 (1941)
    (Source)

On the fall of France to Nazi Germany. See Franklin.