Once An Eagle

That's the whole challenge of life - to act with honor and hope and generosity, no whatter what you've drawn. You can't help when or what you were born, you may not be able to help how you die; but you can - and you should - try to pass the days between as a good man.

if it comes to a choice between being a good soldier and a good human being -- try to be a good human being".

We stand at an immense fork in the raod. One way is the path of generosity, dignity and a respect for other races and customs; the other leads most certainly to greed, suspicion, hatered and the old, bloody course of violence and waste - and now, God help us, to the very destruction of all the struggles and triumphs of the human race on this earth. My old friends and fellow townsmen: which will it be?

God, help me. Help me to be wise and full of courage and sound judgment. Harden my heart to the sights that I must see so soon again, grant me only the power to think clearly, boldly, resolutely, no matter how unnerving the peril. Let me not fail them.

That part of his life was over; and now, lying on the dense mat of grass, he knew in one sense it always had been. But it was fun remembering … The

Postwar America would bear no more similarity to prewar America than the Restoration Monarchy bore to Revolutionary France; what would emerge would be a vast, impersonal juggernaut of industrial cartels, a mountainous administrative bureaucracy and a prestigious military junta—and beneath these, far beneath, an emotional and highly subservient citizenry whose attitudes and actions would be created, aroused, manipulated, subverted by the roar of the mass media … it was so clear! Why couldn’t the dunderheads see it? Whoever could see it—whoever rode this wave deftly, keeping just ahead of its boiling crest—would hold the future securely in his fine right hand

Have you ever felt that, Ts’an Tsan?—a hunger for knowledge so desperate you begrudge food and sleep, you cannot wait for another dawn to get on to more and more?” Damon nodded. “Yes. Well, I had that fever. I had to know: it was more important than life.” From

They lack the ultimate audacity.” Caldwell nodded, frowning. “They possess a certain inventiveness, they plan superbly, they execute with ferocity and care. But then there comes that moment.” He glanced at his son-in-law with a quick, fond smile. “That terribly lonely moment when you must make a further decision—a huge one. One that has nothing to do with everything you’ve anticipated. With the whole future in doubt, with hopelessly inadequate information and exhausted from the strain of the battles already fought, you have to summon up all your energies and decide, quickly and clearly; and act.” He took his pipe from his mouth. “That’s where they break down.” MacConnadin

Postwar America would bear no more similarity to prewar America than the Restoration Monarchy bore to Revolutionary France; what would emerge would be a vast, impersonal juggernaut of industrial cartels, a mountainous administrative bureaucracy and a prestigious military junta—and beneath these, far beneath, an emotional and highly subservient citizenry whose attitudes and actions would be created, aroused, manipulated, subverted by the roar of the mass media

the romantic, spendthrift moral act is ultimately the practical one—the practical, expendient, cozy-dog move is the one that comes to grief.