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The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1) QUOTES

The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1) QUOTES

21 " It’s a great mistake to think dictators are all-powerful! They’re hobbled by their paper shufflers, like all politicians. More so, in a way. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

22 " Now I’m not a Nazi, I’ve never said the Führer is a thousand percent right. But he’s a winner, damn it all. He gets things done, like Roosevelt. And you want us to get rid of him? "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

23 " The Russian Revolution is a radical change in history. The abolition of private property has created a new world. You may like it or detest it, but it’s new. Hitler’s socialism was a sham to get a mob of gangsters into power. He’s frozen the German economy just as it was, smashed the labor unions, lengthened the working hours, cut the pay, and kept all the old rich crowd on top, the Krupps and Thyssens, the men who gave him the money to run for office. The big Nazis live like barons, like sultans. The concentration camps are for anybody who still wants the socialist part of National Socialism. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

24 " There is no morality in world history. There are only tides of change borne on violence and death. The victors write the history, pass the judgments, and hang or shoot the losers. In truth history is an endless chain of hegemony shifts, based on the decay of old political structures and the rise of new ones. Wars are the fever crises of those shifts. Wars are inevitable; there will always be wars; and the one war crime is to lose. That is the reality, and the rest is sentimental nonsense. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

25 " IT IS BETTER TO KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT AND LET PEOPLE THINK YOU’RE A FOOL, THAN TO OPEN IT AND REMOVE ALL DOUBT. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

26 " My view is that Hitler and the Nazis have grown out of the heart of German culture—a cancer, maybe, but a uniquely German phenomenon. Some very clever men have given me hell for holding this opinion. They insist the same thing could have happened anywhere, given the same conditions: defeat in a major war, a harsh peace treaty, ruinous inflation, mass unemployment, communism on the march, anarchy in the streets—all leading to the rise of a demagogue, and a reign of terror. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

27 " There was no clear-cut moment of victory for the British. They really won when Sea Lion was called off, but this Hitler backdown was a secret. The Luftwaffe kept up heavy night raids on the cities, and this with the U-boat sinkings made the outlook for England darker and darker until Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. But the Luftwaffe never recovered from the Battle of Britain. This was one reason why the Germans failed to take Moscow in 1941. The blitzkrieg ran out of blitz in Russia because it had dropped too much of it on the fields of Kent and Surrey, and in the streets of London.—V.H. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

28 " The girl you marry, and the woman you must make a life with, are two different people. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

29 " But whatever the civilian structure, let our people hereafter entrust military affairs to its trained generals, and insist that politicians keep hands off the war machine. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

30 " the winds of war have been blowing us all around the world. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

31 " enormous tragic joke in steel and concrete: half a wall. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

32 " The big bourgeois powers like France, England, and America built their strength and expanded their territory by actions indistinguishable from armed robbery. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

33 " By keeping back the twenty-five squadrons from the lost Battle of France, he acted toughly, wisely, and ungallantly; and he turned the war to the course that ended five long years later, when Hitler killed himself and Nazi Germany fell apart. This deed put Winston Churchill in the company of the rare saviors of countries, and perhaps of civilizations. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

34 " The last war ruined Germany. Another war will be the absolute end of our country. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

35 " our human values, our ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, evolved in simpler times, before there were machines. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

36 " The British criminals responsible for dropping bombs on women and little children would soon have to face the bar of justice. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

37 " Germany’s grand aim, he says, must be a Nordic racial alliance in which England maintains its sea empire, while Germany as its equal partner takes first place on the continent and acquires new soil in the east. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

38 " It was going to be a tough ten years, he thought, for men with grown sons. Warren "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)

39 " I heard one officer say it was the turning point of the war. "

― Herman Wouk , The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1)