A Quote by H. L. Mencken

In human history a moral victory is always a disaster, for it debauches and degrades both the victor and the vanquished.

H. L. Mencken

Quote Topics

Always Both Disaster History Human Human History Moral Moral Victory Vanquished Victor Victory

Quote Author

H. L. Mencken
American - Writer
September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956

We may say that on the first Good Friday afternoon was completed that great act by which light conquered darkness and goodness conquered sin. That is the wonder of our Saviour's crucifixion. There have been victories all over the world, but wherever we look for the victor we expect to find him with his heel upon the neck of the vanquished. The wonder of Good Friday is that the victor lies vanquished by the vanquished one. We have to look deeper into the very heart and essence of things before we can see how real the victory is that thus hides itself under the guise of defeat.

Phillips Brooks

The victor will always be the judge, and the vanquished the accused.

Hermann Goring

Justice has nothing to do with victor nations and vanquished nations, but must be a moral standard that all the world's peoples can agree to. To seek this and to achieve it - that is true civilization

Hideki Tojo

After debauches and orgies there always follows the moral hangover.

Jaroslav Hašek

From an over-arching point-of-view, in war there is heroism on both sides. Obviously, the victor gets the spoils, the victor gets to write history, but there's heroism and compassion on both sides, and to me that's very important.

Russell Crowe

It must be a peace without victory... Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last.

Woodrow Wilson

... [I]n any war a victory means another war, and yet another, until some day inevitably the tides turn, and the victor is the vanquished, and the circle reverses itself, but remains nevertheless a circle.

Pearl S. Buck

Science has produced such powerful weapons that in a war between great powers there would be neither victor nor vanquished. Both would be overwhelmed in destruction.