I distrust Great Men. They produce a desert of uniformity around them and often a pool of blood too, and I always feel a little man’s pleasure when they come a cropper.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“What I Believe,” The Nation (16 Jul 1938)
(Source)
Quotations about:
collateral damage
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Sorrow be damned & all your plans. Fuck the faithful, fuck the committed, the dedicated, the true believers; fuck all the sure & certain people prepared to maim & kill whoever got in their way; fuck every cause that ended in murder & a child crying.
Iain Banks (1954-2013) Scottish author
Against a Dark Background (1993)
Often paraphrased as "Fuck every cause that ends in murder and children crying."
Don’t spit in the soup. We’ve all got to eat.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
(Attributed)
A favorite political comment of Johnson's, going back at least as far as when he was US Senate majority leader. It's sometimes labeled as an old adage from Texas politics.
The core metaphor of "spitting in the soup" (ruining/sabotaging something) long predates Johnson; the phrase's application to politics ("don't make things so toxic or failed that you hurt your colleagues and the political institution itself") seems more applicable than ever.
The connection to Johnson seems to have solidified with its inclusion in Jack Shepherd, Christopher Wren, eds., Quotations from Chairman LBJ, Epigraph (1968).
As a verbal comment, and given folk wanting to elicit (or mock) Johnson's Texas accent, variants include "we all got to eat," "we've all gotta eat," etc.
Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 Nov 1787)
(Source)
