Arthur Desmond Quotes (1859-1929)

“There is no field of activity for great men without the coming of great wars, great struggles and great revolutions.”

“Why should a man deliberately encircle his mind with needless prison walls. No man can reach highest excellence who puts limits to his own thought.”

“The reason there are no great poets and writers now is because there are no great deeds or heroes to write about. The world is becoming tame and sad and dreary.”

“Shall it be said of us in after years that we studied the history of the rise and fall of empires, republics, revolutions , and Caesar's for naught? Shall men say of us we missed our opportunity?.”

“What does it matter whether millions of semi-brainless beings curse or bless my memory? It is equally one to me whether they hang my bones in chains like they did the bones of Cromwell, or build a pyramid of stone over my mouldering coffin. Today only do I regard. Today I know. Today is mine. Today I wish to be something.”

“Why do men go to war? Is it not in some way to better their condition. All these new fangled notions that men fight for other things than their own personal advantage is pure delusion. It is the solid things of life that men are ever after, though some of them haven't the courage to admit it. What is love of country but love of it's good things?”

“[A] reasoned negation of the Ten Commandments—the Golden Rule–the Sermon on the Mount—Republican Principles—Christian Principles—and "Principles" in general. It proclaims upon scientific evolutionary grounds, the unlimited absolutism of Might, and asserts that cut-and-dried moral codes are crude and immoral inventions, promotive of vice and vassalage.”

“Let us turn passing events to our own advantage. Out of conditions as they exist let us carve out fortunes and realize our ambitions. In the beginning nature made man a contending animal. Are we not all Greeks or Trojans? We must therefore make up our minds for a life of continual battle, we must fight, I say, morning, noon and night, if need be against an entire world.”

“It can postpone death, cure disease, release the captive, bring sight to the blind, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, destroy the despot, win the love of women, and procure all reasonable earthly happiness to any man who is not entirely too old. In course of time perhaps it may even resurrect the dead, create life and storm the very gates of heaven, for money is force and force is the essence of the universe.”

“Now what I desire to know is this: If we want to shoot a man and he badly wants to shoot us, why should we not take his property (if we can) as well as his life? Isn't that the way men win a 'fatherland' first? Don't they fight and conquer the original owners and then take the land? Very well then, what is the good of being a soldier, of risking your life, and being a brave man in battle, if you cannot sieze from your beaten enemy, what your greater valor wins and what you stand badly in need of?”

“Why should we not go to the extremes if we desire to play a part in the great world drama?...to go to the extremes is ever symptomatic of genius and greatness. Weakness is to compromise, to hesitate, to be halfhearted. Are not the great names of ancient and modern times the names of haughty and aggressive personalities who carried there loves and convictions to extremes , that is to say to logic and clean out conclusions? Mediocrity is safe, no doubt it is, but it is very commonplace and of drab color. Mediocrity is for men of the secondary, the bloodless type… both of us feel the solid truth in the old saying: he who would be famous must go forth and risk his hide and hair.”