Mercenary Quotes - Page 2

• When the public loses faith in democracy's ability to solve the problems it has created for itself, the game's almost over. And I think we are this close to losing democracy to the mercenary class.

  Bill Moyers

  Thinking, Games, Class

  Source: progressive.org

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• There are people we treat wrong and later we're prepared to treat other people right. Perhaps this sounds mercenary, but I feel grateful for these trial relationships, and I would like to think it all evens out - surely, unknowingly, I have served as practice for other people.

  Curtis Sittenfeld

  Grateful, Thinking, Practice

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• Money is both the generation and corruption of purchased honor; honor is both the child and slave of potent money: the credit which honor hath lost, money hath found. When honor grew mercenary, money grew honorable. The way to be truly noble is to contemn both.

  Francis Quarles

  Money, Children, Honor

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• There can be no freedom in the large sense of the word, no harmonious development, so long as mercenary and commercial considerations play an important part in the determination of personal conduct.

  Emma Goldman

  Determination, Business, Play

  Emma Goldman, Candace Falk (2008). “Emma Goldman”, p.341, University of Illinois Press

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• (He) was in love with the idea of revolution. Men like that, even when they turn their backs on their party and their comrades, can never let go of the idea: it's the secret god that rules their hearts. It is what makes them come alive; they revel in the danger, the exquisite pain. It is to them what childbirth is to a woman, or war to a mercenary.

  Amitav Ghosh

  Letting Go, Pain, War

  Amitav Ghosh (2014). “The Hungry Tide: A Novel”, p.100, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Mithridates, he died old. Housman's passage is based on the belief of the ancients that Mithridates the Great [c. 135-63 B.C.] had so saturated his body with poisons that none could injure him. When captured by the Romans he tried in vain to poison himself, then ordered a Gallic mercenary to kill him.

  A. E. Housman

  Poison, Body, Belief

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• But I think what we're coming to grips with is the fact that we actually have a mercenary Army, and it doesn't have a nice ring to it. We call it 'volunteers', but we're basically paying people to serve their country. And if you're going to pay people and have a mercenary Army, you're going to have to pay the market rate. And so the bounties are going up—more money for tuition, higher enlistment bonuses—and I think it's appropriate.

  Eleanor Clift

  Country, Nice, Army

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• The Renaissance was a time of mercenary soldiers, ours is a time of mercenary labor.

  Eric Hoffer

  Time, Soldier, Renaissance

  "Before the Sabbath". Book by Eric Hoffer, 1979.

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• In a culture where the possibility of wealth and the acquisition of things is so defining of success, we end up pursuing things that, even if we are successful, can never deliver what we envisioned they would. The reason riches become such a snare is because we end up evaluating life in mercenary terms and being seen by others in such terms, and life is just not so.

  Ravi Zacharias

  Successful, Acquisition, Culture

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• The requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime.

  Rex Stout

  Income, Crime, Taxes

  Rex Stout (2011). “THREE MEN OUT”, p.156, Crimeline

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• All flatterers are mercenary, and all low-minded men are flatterers.

  Aristotle

  Men, Lows, Flatterer

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• The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.

  Joseph Pulitzer

  Hands, Generations, Republic

  Joseph Pulitzer, Michael Edgar Pulitzer (1989). “Pulitzer Publishing Company: Newspapers and Broadcasting in the Public Interest”

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• Cultivated people should be superior to any consideration so sordid as a mercenary interest.

  Moliere

  Money, People, Consideration

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• So many of us had been armed that there were holsters and weapons scattered among the passed-out bodies like mercenary prizes in a fleshy Cracker Jack box.

  Laurell K. Hamilton

  Body, Weapons, Crackers

  Laurell K. Hamilton (2010). “Bullet”, p.161, Hachette UK

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• When the going gets tough, the tough take a nap.

  Tom Hodgkinson

  Sleep, Naps, Tough Times

  "Idle thoughts" by Tom Hodgkinson, www.theguardian.com. July 28, 2006.

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• Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a completely ad hoc plot device.

  David Langford

  Technology, Plot, Devices

  David Langford (2003). “Up Through an Empty House of Stars”, p.122, Wildside Press LLC

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• The mercenary finished his coffee in a single gulp, It must have been piping hot, too. Boy, he was tough.

  Jonathan Stroud

  Coffee, Boys, Hot

  Jonathan Stroud (2005). “Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book Three: Ptolemy's Gate”, Disney-Hyperion

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• We view ourselves on the eve of battle. We are nerved for the contest, and must conquer or perish. It is vain to look for present aid: none is at hand. We must now act or abandon all hope! Rally to the standard, and be no longer the scoff of mercenary tongues! Be men, be free men, that your children may bless their father's name.

  Sam Houston

  Children, Father, Men

  Sam Houston, Eugene Campbell Barker (1939). “The writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863”

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• Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Science, Technology, Possible And Impossible

  Letter to the editor, Science, 19 Jan. 1968.

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• The Bible constantly warns against a merely mercenary relationship with God - a friendship of convenience or self-interest. We should not love God simply because doing so will produce many consolations in our life. We must enter a true relationship, were we fall in love not with His benefits, but with Him.

  Robert Barron

  Falling In Love, Self, Benefits

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• I'm like this mercenary actor going from show to show - people love to hire me, but then don't want me around much.

  Sebastian Roche

  People, Actors, Want

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• Amid the most mercenary ages it is but a secondary sort of admiration that is bestowed upon magnificence.

  William Shenstone

  Age, Magnificence, Admiration

  William Shenstone (1804). “Essays on Men and Manners”, p.165

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• I like the desperado aspect of essays, the free lance, that mercenary kind of thing, so I just do it, without asking anyone's permission. I've never written a query letter, I don't pitch pieces, I have no market in mind, I don't spend any time trying to figure out where I might fit in.

  Charles D'Ambrosio

  Mind, Trying, Kind

  "Loitering: A Conversation with Essayist and Author Charles D'Ambrosio". Interview With Chris Schluep, www.amazonbookreview.com. February 3, 2016.

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• Of all sorts of flattery, that which comes from a solemn character and stands before a sermon is the worst-complexioned. Such commendation is a satire upon the author, makes the text look mercenary, and disables the discourse from doing service.

  Jeremy Collier

  Character, Looks, Flattery

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• The (Catholic) church, as far as I know, has not endorsed any war as just since it supported General Franco's invasion of Spain to destroy the Spanish republic with a Muslim mercenary army in the thirties, on the side of Hitler.

  Christopher Hitchens

  War, Army, Catholic

  "Tim Russert" (Talk-Show on CNBC), September 25, 2004.

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