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Twelve Against the Gods QUOTES

Twelve Against the Gods QUOTES

1 " In his stay with the cultured old epicure, Casanova had learnt two Latin saws, which were to be for the rest of his life his gospel and his policy: Fata viam inveniunt. Volentem ducit, nolentem trahit. As we may say : Fate finds the way, and Life leads its lover, betrays its rebel. "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

2 " Casanova had no ordinary shame "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

3 " The truth is that he (Casanova) had ceased subtly to be an adventurer to become a noisy scoundrel, or if that is too harsh, that he had no longer the irresistible charm of being the world’s best loser. He was always greedy. Now he was grasping. He was always noticeable. Now he was loud. He had become without knowing it a social man, desperately interested in the stability of his own position which he tried, without knowing how to do it, to link up with the stability of society. He had become a fortune hunter, and shrank from the quest of chance; the supernatural shine had left his eyes. Men saw in him no longer Puck, but a rival. "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

4 " Yet, feeling his way, starting by the passive opposition of small thefts, stealing sausage ends and crusts of bread when Signora Squeers was asleep, he (Casanova) progressed until he arrived at the thought “ that it was ridiculous to be oppressed "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

5 " To every sweetheart he (Casanova) gave himself exclusively; he had so many selves. "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

6 " Nevertheless this was the problem Casanova solved. His prime secret is in his own words. “ I have always believed that when a man gets it into his head to do something, and when he exclusively occupies himself in that design, he must succeed whatever the difficulties. That man will become Grand Vizier or Pope. He will upset a dynasty, provided he starts young and has the brain and perseverance necessary. For when a man has arrived at the age that Chance despises he can no longer do anything ; for without her aid there is no hope. "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

7 " Where he (Alexander) came the inhabitants either accepted him with roses and wine, or fought and were beaten. He preferred the latter. "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

8 " If he had wished, he could have annexed Denmark; and ended a thousand years of war and history. But Charles had no weaknesses; now and thereafter he was behaving out of a book. The first maxim of Alexanderism is never to stop; Charles continued. "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

9 " He (Cicero) made Catiline and his conspiracy actually simple; the man himself had the courage to sit in front of him and listen, and at the end, it seemed as if he had exposed Catiline even to himself. "

― William Bolitho, , Twelve Against the Gods

10 " In politics, where everything romantic and sentimental is folly, the converse is usually considered true, and every brutality is thought sound sense "

― William Bolitho, , Twelve Against the Gods

11 " In short, she (Seraphina) had luck and judgment, but no morals. "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

12 " Restated constructively, the end of the adventure already drags the course of the man; he (Cagliostro) is in love with satiety. But she (Seraphina) is in love with adventure. Her pitch is higher. "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

13 " And he loved her—with the exalted and romantic intensity that a social climber gives to a woman whom he thinks superior to his own class. "

― William Bolitho, , Twelve Against the Gods

14 " And so begins the strangest campaign in military history : a competent general and a seasoned army of eighty thousand men chased like deer, in their own country, by an invader who used his vastly smaller forces more like a pack of hunting dogs than men; laying them on the scent rather than mapping routes, caring no more for their feelings, their fatigues, their lives, than a hunter who is rather fond of a good dog. Up and down the map of East Germany they ran, hunter and hunted, in an Alexandrian zig-zag of the best manner. The only strategical question in Charles’ science was “ Where are they ? ” Never, “ How many ? How entrenched ? ” At last Charles had made war into what schoolboys dreamed it ought to be. "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

15 " He had come to prospect the intentions of Charles towards the French and the Anglo-Austrian coalition, and even if Charles had thrown his jack-boot at his head, it would not have disturbed him from his mission. Marlborough was a slow negotiator. He was never in a hurry to make propositions or ask questions, preferring under cover of a banal conversation to use his extremely acute faculties of observation, and his art of unraveling other men’s
motives, as it were, sideways. The ablest diplomat will never boast of understanding a man, but only his intentions. "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

16 " Gendemen, I have resolved never to make an unjust war, but to end a just one only with the utter ruin of my enemies. I will attack the first to take the field, conquer him, and then deal with the others.”- Charles XII "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

17 " He fought with Augustus and Peter, not with Russia or Poland. He aimed at full apologies, not conquests. "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

18 " All these outposts were broken in,and that which in other histories would have counted as three victories did not delay the progress of Charles for one hour "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

19 " In its greatest moments, memory seems to desert human beings ; only tiny ordinary events leave clear detailed trace. Probably none at the pitch of exaltation which Charles and his men had reached had any remembrance of what happened; we can be supermen only on condition of going into a trance. The result alone is related "

― , Twelve Against the Gods

20 " It is when the pirates count their booty, that they become mere thieves. "

― , Twelve Against the Gods