History Quotes / TheChainsOfCommanding

--> ''Series/OhsamaSentaiKingOhger'', "[[Recap/OhsamaSentaiKingOhgerEp23ShugoddamsMovingCastle Shugoddam's Moving Castle]]"

->'''Yamma Gast:''' How's it feel?\\
'''Gira Husty:''' It's painful...\\
'''Yamma:''' Gotta see it through if you're going to become king. Make the kingdom's pain your own.\\

-->-- ''Series/OhsamaSentaiKingOhger'', "[[Recap/OhsamaSentaiKingOhgerEp23ShugoddamsMovingCastle Shugoddam's Moving Castle]]"

->'''Louise:''' ...no. But I cannot afford that. The army at the gates is slain but another marches soon and I must be ready. Dead fiances and murder cannot occupy my mind.

'''The President:''' These past few hours have been the longest, darkest of my life. [[TheNeedsOfTheMany How does one weigh human life? One million civilians against eighty one hostages.]] And in the middle, Frank Hummel. That we have ignored, abandoned, or marginalized a great solider like Frank Hummel and that American boys have paid for that neglect in blood is equally real and equally tragic. (''[[GlassesPull Takes off his glasses]]'') We are at war with terror, fighting a war means casualties. This is the worst call I've ever had to make. (''Picks up phone'') Air strike approved.

->Steal my daughter back! Take all [the rubies] you can carry! There's ''more!'' Much more! Enough to become kings ''yourselves!'' ... There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to ''sparkle'', and the gold loses it's ''lustre'', the throne room becomes a ''prison'', and all that is left is a father's love for his child...

->As far as creature comforts were concerned, Jack Aubrey was far, far better off than anyone else in the ''Worcester''. He had privacy, he had space: as well as the great cabin in which he took his ease or entertained or played his fiddle and the stern-gallery in which he took the air when he chose to take it alone rather than on the thickly-populated quarterdeck, he had a dining-cabin and a sleeping-cabin, the fore-cabin where he taught his youngsters and attended to his paper-work, and quarter-galleries as lavatory and place of ease. He had his own steward and his own cook, a great deal of room for his private livestock, provisions and wine, and enough in the way of pay and allowances for a provident single man to lay in an adequate supply.
->It was ungrateful of him to be discontented, as he admitted in the long rambling letter that he wrote day by day to Sophie - a letter, or rather and installment of the letter, in which he described Stephen's departure. Ungrateful and illogical: he had always known that the Navy was given to extremes and most of the extremes he had experienced himself, beginning with that truly startling lack of space that had faced him early in his career when an angry captain disrated him, so that from one day to the next he was no longer a midshipman but a foremast hand, a common sailor required to sling his hammock on the ''Resolution'''s lower deck at the regulation fourteen inches from his neighbours'. Since the ''Resolution'' was a two-watch ship, with half her people on deck when the other half were below, in practice these fourteen inches increased to twenty-eight; but even so Jack's bulky neighbours touched him on either side as they all rolled together on the swell, part of a carpet of humanity, some hundreds strong, unventilated, unwashed apart from hands and faces, given to snoring, grinding their teeth, calling out in their troubled sleep, never more than four hours at a time and rarely so much. Disrating was a rough experience and it had seemed to last forever, but it was of great value, teaching him more about the men and about their attitude towards officers, work, and one another than he could ever have learnt on the quarterdeck: teaching him a very great many things, among them the value of space.
->Yet here he was with space to be measured by the rod, pole or perch rather than by the square inches of the midshipmen's berth or the square foot of his days as a lieutenant - space and even headroom too, a point of real importance to a man of his height and a rare privilege in ships designed for people of five foot six. He had space and to spare; and he did not appreciate it as he should have done. One of the troubles was that it was uninhabited space, since by another of the Navy's rules of extremes he now ate and lived quite alone, whereas on the lower deck he had dined in the company of five hundred hearty eaters and even in his various gunroom and wardroom messes with a dozen or so - never a meal alone until he reached command; but from that time on never a meal accompanied, except by express invitation.

->The familiar tedium of blockade made these spacious, lonely evenings lonelier and more spacious by far, but in one form or another they were the lot common to all captains who respected tradition and who wished to maintain their authority. Some dealt with the situation by having their wives aboard, in spite of the regulations, particularly on the longer, quieter passages, and some took mistresses; but neither would do in a squadron commanded by Admiral Thornton. Others sailed with friends, and although Jack had known this answer fairly well, generally speaking it seemed that few friendships could stand such close, enforced proximity for many weeks, let alone months or even years. There were also men who took to drinking too much, while some grew strange, crotchety and absolute; and although the great majority became neither confirmed drunkards nor eccentrics, nearly all captains with more than a few years' service were deeply marked by it.

->[Euryptolemus] pointed out that at least one of the generals was entirely blameless, since he had been swimming to shore from his sinking flagship at the time of the fatal council. Of what could he be guilty, except bad luck?

->Are you faced with the problem of leading this nation in an unending conflict with the Russians? Is it your charge, day in and day out, night in and night out, to be concerned always with the fear that if you don't do just the right thing they'll destroy the country that has entrusted you with all its hopes and all its futures? Such a great country, Bob, meaning so well and hoping so much and trying so hard to do the right thing and being nibbled to death by its friends and enemies alike and you realize that if you fail - not somebody else but ''you'' - that it maybe lost forever - do you have any concept of what that means? Do you understand at all the lengths which that can drive you sometimes?

->''"My personal opinion says 'yes', but the government policies under which I must weight my decision say 'no'."''

'''Sisko:''' And that's why, despite everything that's happened, you're going to make a hell of a captain some day.

'''Bart:''' Aw, Dad, if just me, Milhouse and Lewis had voted...\\

'''Homer:''' And is Martin guy going to get to do anything neat, like throw out the first ball at the World Series? Huh?\\

->"You've made so many decisions I didn't expect -- [[spoiler:giving yourself up to Homeworld, coming back through Lion's mane]]. The future that you created was so improbable that I didn't see it coming at all, and now I can't understand where this timeline is going. We're on the outskirts of the possible, following trickles to who knows where. Everyone's looking to me for answers. I can't stand it! It's so hard for me to just exist in the first place, Steven. I want to love being alive. I want to love that there are so many possibilities, but I'm the one with this ability, so I've got to be our guide."