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Chester W. Nimitz

Fleet Admiral Chester William Nimitz (24 February 1885 – 20 February 1966) was a fleet admiral of the United States Navy. He played a major role in the naval history of World War II as Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet (CinCPac), for U.S. naval forces and Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas (CinCPOA), for U.S. and Allied air, land, and sea forces during World War II.

Quotes

 * '''We shall never forget that it was our submarines that held the lines against the enemy while our fleets replaced losses and repaired wounds.
 * As quoted in Historic Ship Exhibits in the United States (1969), by United States Naval History Division, United States Navy, p. 24

 * I felt that it was an unnecessary loss of civilian life... We had them beaten. They hadn't enough food, they couldn't do anything.
 * On the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as quoted by his widow, who also stated that he had "always felt badly over the dropping of that bomb because he said we had Japan beaten already" in The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth (1995) by Gar Alperovitz

 * The enemy of our games was always Japan, and the courses were so thorough that after the start of World War II, nothing that happened in the Pacific was strange or unexpected.
 * On his training for warfare in the Pacific at the Naval War college in 1922, as quoted at The American Experience (PBS)

 * The war with Japan had been enacted in the game rooms at the War College by so many people and in so many different ways that nothing that happened during the war was a surprise—absolutely nothing except the kamikaze tactics toward the end of the war. We had not visualized these.
 * Writing the president of the US Naval War College shortly after World War II. Quoted by Donald C. Winter, Secretary of the Navy]

 * Hindsight is notably cleverer than foresight.
 * Quoted in The Magnificent Mitscher by Theodore Taylor, p. 266

1930s

 * I do believe we are going to have a major war, with Japan and Germany, and that the war is going to start by a very serious surprise attack and defeat of U.S. armed forces, and that there is going to be a major revulsion on the part of the political power in Washington against all those in command at sea, and they are going to be thrown out, though it won't be their fault necessarily. And I wish to be in a position of sufficient prominence so that I will then be considered as one to be sent to sea, because that appears to be the route.
 * On his expectations of war, and that he would someday become the Chief of Naval Operations, in a conversation during the mid 1930s with his son, Chester W. Nimitz, Jr.; as quoted in Nimitz (1976) by E. B. Potter. ISBN 0870214926

1940

 * '''A ship is always referred to as "she" because it costs so much to keep her in paint and powder.
 * Remarks to the Society of Sponsors, U.S. Navy, 13 February 1940

1941

 * Naval fleets probably never again will fight in full force... No government today can afford to run the risk of staking its entire naval force on a single battle. Therefore, it is probable that in the future fighting will be done by special units. These will be organized according to the requirements of the tasks assigned to them. One mission might require only a few cruisers, a number of destroyers, an aircraft carrier and some submarines. Another might require a battleship or two.
 * As quoted in Time magazine, Volume XXXVII (1941), p. 18

1942

 * Through the skill and devotion to duty of their armed forces of all branches in the Midway area our citizens can now rejoice that a momentous victory is in the making. It was on a Sunday just six months ago that the Japanese made their peace‑time attack on our fleet and army activities on Oahu. At that time they created heavy damage, it is true, but their act aroused the grim determination of our citizenry to avenge such treachery, and it raised, not lowered, the morale of our fighting men. Pearl Harbor has now been partially avenged. Vengeance will not be complete until Japanese sea power has been reduced to impotence. We have made substantial progress in that direction. Perhaps we will be forgiven if we claim we are about midway to our objective!
 * After the Battle of Midway, CINCPAC Communiqué No. 3, (6 June 1942)

1944

 * Is the proposed operation likely to succeed? What might be the consequences of failure? Is it in the realm of practicability in terms of matériel and supplies?
 * "Three favorite rules of thumb" Nimitz had printed on a card he kept on his desk, as quoted in LIFE magazine (10 July 1944)

1945

 * By their victory, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions and other units of the Fifth Amphibious Corps have made an accounting to their country which only history will be able to value fully. Among the Americans serving on Iwo island, uncommon valor was a common virtue.
 * Statement after the Battle of Iwo Jima (c. March - May 1945); "UNCOMMON VALOR WAS A COMMON VIRTUE" has been inscribed on the USMC War Memorial.

I take great pride in the American forces which have helped to win this victory. America can be proud of them. The officers and men of the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and merchant marine who fought in the Pacific have written heroic new chapters in this Nation's military history. I have infinite respect for their courage, resourcefulness, and devotion to duty. We also acknowledge the great contribution to this victory made by our valiant Allies. United we fought and united we prevail. The port of Tokyo, which was first opened by Commodore Perry in 1853, is now crowded with United States men-of-war. The process of bringing Japan into the family of civilized nations, which was interrupted when Japan launched her program of conquest, will soon begin again.
 * On board all vessels at sea and in port, and at our many island bases in the Pacific, there is rejoicing and thanksgiving. The long and bitter struggle, which Japan started so treacherously on the 7th of December 1941, is at an end.
 * Statement broadcast to the United States and the Pacific Fleet, after ceremonies in Tokyo Bay accepting the official surrender of Japan (2 September 1945)

On Guam is a military cemetery in a green valley not far from my headquarters. The ordered rows of white crosses stand as reminders of the heavy cost we have paid for victory. On these crosses are the names of American soldiers, sailors and marines — Culpepper, Tomaino, Sweeney, Bromberg, Depew, Melloy, Ponziani — names that are a cross-section of democracy. '''They fought together as brothers in arms; they died together and now they sleep side by side. To them we have a solemn obligation — the obligation to insure that their sacrifice will help to make this a better and safer world in which to live.''' … Now we turn to the great tasks of reconstruction and restoration. I am confident that we will be able to apply the same skill, resourcefulness, and keen thinking to these problems as were applied to the problems of winning the victory.
 * Today all freedom-loving peoples of the world rejoice in the victory and feel pride in the accomplishments of our combined forces. We also pay tribute to those who defended our freedom at the cost of their lives.
 * Statement broadcast to the United States and the Pacific Fleet, after ceremonies in Tokyo Bay accepting the official surrender of Japan (2 September 1945); a portion of this is engraved on the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

 * The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into war. ... The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan.
 * Public statement quoted in The New York Times (6 October 1945) and in The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (1996) by Gar Alperovitz

Employment of Naval Forces (1948)

 * Employment of Naval Forces : "Who Commands Sea — Commands Trade", printed in monthly NEWSLETTER (March 1948)

 * Sir Walter Raleigh declared in the early 17th century that "whoever commands the sea, commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself." This principle is as true today as when uttered, and its effect will continue as long as ships traverse the seas.

 * The United States possesses today control of the sea more absolute than was possessed by the British. Our interest in this control is not riches and power as such. It is first the assurance of our national security, and, second, the creation and perpetuation of that balance and stability among nations which will insure to each the right of self-determination under the framework of the United Nations Organization.

 * Our present control of the sea is so absolute that it is sometimes taken for granted.

 * Our present undisputed control of the sea was achieved primarily through the employment of naval air-sea forces in the destruction of Japanese and German sea power. It was consolidated by the subsequent reduction of these nations to their present impotence, in which the employment of naval air-sea forces against land objectives played a vital role. It can be perpetuated only through the maintenance of balanced naval forces of all categories adequate to our strategic needs (which include those of the non-totalitarian world), and which can flexibly adjust to new modes of air-sea warfare and which are alert to develop and employ new weapons and techniques as needed.

 * The basic objectives and principles of war do not change. The final objective in war is the destruction of the enemy's capacity and will to fight, and thereby force him to accept the imposition of the victor's will. This submission has been accomplished in the past by pressure in and from each of the elements of land and sea, and during World War I and II, in and from the air as well. The optimum of pressure is exerted through that absolute control obtained by actual physical occupation. This optimum is obtainable only on land where physical occupation can be consolidated and maintained.

 * If we are to project our power against the vital areas of any enemy across the ocean before beachheads on enemy territory are captured, it must be by air-sea power; by aircraft launched from carriers; and by heavy surface ships and submarines projecting guided missiles and rockets. If present promise is developed by research, test and production, these three types of air-sea power operating in concert will be able within the next ten years critically to damage enemy vital areas many hundreds of miles inland. Naval task forces including these types are capable of remaining at sea for months. This capability has raised to a high point the art of concentrating air power within effective range of enemy objectives.

 * Naval forces are able, without resorting to diplomatic channels, to establish offshore anywhere in the world, air fields completely equipped with machine shops, ammunition dumps, tank farms, warehouses, together with quarters and all types of accommodations for personnel. Such task forces are virtually as complete as any air base ever established. They constitute the only air bases that can be made available near enemy territory without assault and conquest; and furthermore, they are mobile offensive bases, that can be employed with the unique attributes of secrecy and surprise — which attributes contribute equally to their defensive as well as offensive effectiveness.

1949

 * When I assumed command of the Pacific Fleet in 31 December, 1941; our submarines were already operating against the enemy, the only units of the Fleet that could come to grips with the Japanese for months to come. It was to the Submarine Force that I looked to carry the load until our great industrial activity could produce the weapons we so sorely needed to carry the war to the enemy. It is to the everlasting honor and glory of our submarine personnel that they never failed us in our days of peril.
 * Foreword, in United States Submarine Operations in World War II. (1949) by Theodore Roscoe, p. v

1950

 * The U.S.'s major strength factor and weapon is its economy. If you cripple it, you cripple the military.
 * As quoted in "According to Plan" in TIME magazine (13 March 1950)

 * That is not to say that we can relax our readiness to defend ourselves. Our armament must be adequate to the needs, but our faith is not primarily in these machines of defense but in ourselves.
 * Speech at the University of California, Berkeley (22 March 1950)

1951

 * God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless.
 * Appended to a variant of the Serenity Prayer in The Armed Forces Prayer Book (1951)

1964

 * Once A Marine should become required reading for the young men of our country. It is a success story which highlights the fact that there is still room at the top for young men of courage, determination and the average educational advantages available to all our young people. General Vandegrift, perhaps more than any other Marine, added luster and glory to our elite Corps that had already won enviable battle honors during its long history of military achievement. His long and successful struggle to hold Guadalcanal against seemingly overwhelming odds will live long in military history. Many veterans of the Marine Corps and of the sister services who participated or were associated in the Guadalcanal episode of World War II will relive their experience in reading Once A Marine. And this includes yours truly who, perforce, had to witness this struggle from afar.
 * On the back of the dust jacket of Once A Marine: The Memoirs of General A.A. Vandegrift, U.S.M.C. (1964) by Alexander Vandegrift

Quotes about Nimitz

 * Alphabetized by author

 * FLEET ADMIRAL CHESTER WILLIAM NIMITZ, USN. Born Texas 1885. Annapolis Class of 1905. First Command, USS Panay, 1907. Commanded Atlantic Submarine Flotilla, 1912-1913; USS Chicago, 1920-3. Promoted to Capt., 1927. Commanded USS's Rigel, 1931; Augusta, 1933. Attained flag rank, 1938. As Admiral, commanded Pacific Fleet, 1941; awarded DSM, and DSM by Congress, for services. In 1943, designated Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas. On Dec. 19, 1944, achieved highest rank, Fleet Admiral. Signed for U.S. when Japan formally surrendered aboard USS Missouri, Sept. 2, 1945. Awarded third DSM on Nimitz Day in Wash'n, Oct. 5, 1945. Designated Chief of Naval Operations, Nov. 1945.
 * Biographical Notes on Nimitz in Battle Stations! Your Navy in Action (1946), p. 397

 * In the wake of the Pearl Harbor disaster, President Roosevelt made sweeping changes in the navy high command. When word of these changes reached the submarine force, there were cheers. The key people, it seemed, were all submariners. First, and most important, Roosevelt named Admiral Ernest Joseph King, Jr., to the post of Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, and Chief of Naval Operations, replacing Admiral Stark. King had commanded the Submarine Base at New London and a division of S-boats and had played a key role in salvaging two sunken submarines in the 1920s, the S-51 and the S-4. Although King had never commanded a submarine, he wore the dolphin insignia plus his aviator's wings. Second, King appointed former submariner Chester Nimitz to replace Kimmel (and Pye) as Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. After his submarine service before and during World War I, Nimitz had established the Submarine Base at Pearl Harbor and then commanded a division of early fleet boats, including Barracuda, Bass, and Bonita.
 * Clay Blair, Jr., Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, p. 125

 * The major reason for the submarine failure of 1942 was not mechanical, physical, or psychological. It was, to put it simply, a failure of imagination on the highest levels by King, Edwards, Nimitz, Hart, Wilkes, Withers, English, Lockwood, Christie, and Fife. All these men failed to set up a broad, unified strategy for Pacific submarines aimed at a single specific goal: interdicting Japanese shipping services in the most efficient and telling manner. The lessons of the German U-boat campaigns against Britain in World Wars I and II- the later in progress almost on Washington's doorstep- had apparently not yet sunk home. The military and maritime theories of Clausewicz and Mahan were ignored. The U.S. submarine force was divided and shunted about willy-nilly on missions for which it was not suited, while the bulk of Japanese shipping sailed unmolested in Empire waters and through the bottleneck in Luzon Strait.
 * Clay Blair, Jr., Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, p. 361-362

 * Spruance received his written orders in the evening of 27 May, the night before he got underway. They comprised ten succinct pages. All operation orders in the early stages of the war were terse, reflecting the command philosophy of King, Nimitz, and the better admirals. That philosophy was to tell the subordinate commander what you wanted done, give him the necessary resources, provide as much information as you could about the enemy, and then let him alone so he could accomplish his mission. King would upbraid any commander for the sin of oversupervising his subordinates with complex, overly detailed directives. The intent was to encourage the on-scene commander to use his initiative and not to inhibit his freedom of action. Spruance's personal belief was that the commander responsible for accomplishing the mission should develop the necessary plans; the proper role of the next highest command echelon was to establish the objective and to suggest how the objective might be achieved.
 * Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (1987), p. 136

 * Nimitz wore two hats: Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC), whereby he commanded all naval and Marine Corps units in the Pacific; and Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas (CINCPOA), a combined command which gave Nimitz authority over all American and Allied naval and military forces in the Pacific theater, except those in MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area. The task with the highest priority for Nimitz in the summer of 1942 was the seizure of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Admiral King had insisted upon a "defensive-offensive" strategy in the Pacific in order to wrest the initiative from the Japanese, continually victorious in the Southwest Pacific and only recently checked in the Central Pacific by the Battle of Midway. Prodded by King, the JCS in the summer of 1942 directed Nimitz to seize Guadalcanal and adjacent Tulagi.
 * Thomas B. Buell, The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (1974), p. 151

 * King's attitude was a paradox. He griped about too many people getting decorations, but he refused to establish a policy that would end the confusion. Nimitz was his voice of conscience, besieging King to approve the Purple Heart or to define different grades for the Legion of Merit. But it was futile. King did nothing. Nimitz tried to force the issue at their January 1944 meeting in San Francisco by demanding a formal board to standardize the awarding of decorations. All the services had different rules, argued Nimitz, and the Army Air Force was notably generous. If the services could not agree on a common policy, then the President should act. King stalled with a promise to study the problem. King's thinking began to change in June 1944. Just before King had left to watch the Normandy landings, Abby Dunlap had warned him that when the war was over the Army Air Force would get all the credit and the Navy would be forgotten. King thought she was too pessimistic. But when he next saw Abby and Betsy Matter following the invasion, he told Abby she had been right.
 * Thomas B. Buell, Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King (1980), p. 382

 * In the Pacific, too, the tide had turned - and even more swiftly than in Eastern Europe. At the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway (May and June 1942), Admiral Chester W. Nimitz's carriers first checked and then inflicted heavy casualties on the numerically superior Japanese fleet. As at Kursk, both sides suffered substantial losses, but the relative cost of the battle to the already over-stretched Axis power was far higher; the Japanese would never replace their four sunk carriers, whereas the Americans were still far from the peak of their shipbuilding capacity. The series of battles fought on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomons between August 1942 and February 1943 exposed the vulnerability of Japanese ground forces once the Americans had established naval and air superiority. In May 1943 US forces destroyed the Japanese forces on the Aleutian island of Attu and forced them to abandon Kiska; by September Japanese strategy had degenerated into holding an 8,000-mile last line of defence which they were already losing the means of supplying.
 * Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), p. 535

 * On October 15 he read a message from Ghormley containing a cry of resignation: "My forces [are] totally inadequate to meet [the] situation. Nimitz had already exhausted the material assistance he could give Ghormley's command, but there was one other way he could influence events, and he discussed this subject with his staff on the night of October 15. Some of them noted Nimitz's normally sunny blue eyes now flashed an icy gray as he prepared to talk about what Hanson Baldwin identified as the single greatest obstacle to American success: leadership. Ghormley, said Nimitz, was an intelligent and capable officer, but he was he tough enough to face the coming crisis, and more important, could he inspire men to feats beyond their known capabilities? The staff answered unanimously: no.
 * Richard B. Frank, Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle (1990), p. 333

 * This solved but half the problem, for who could replace Ghormley? Turner's name immediately resurfaced, but although he was a strong leader, the Marines were restive under Turner's government and there was the cloud of Savo Island over his head. Providentially just off the sick list was Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, a sailor known and admired throughout the Navy as a fighter, especially by the enlisted men. But the criteria for the job of COMSOPAC did not include personal popularity, and some senior officers suspected that Halsey's talents as a fighter and leader in close contact with the enemy would be mismatched to the role of theater commander. After some thought, Nimitz decided it must be Halsey and the next day requested King's approval. COMINCH's reply was a brutally short one word message: "Affirmative."
 * Richard B. Frank, Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle (1990), p. 333-334

 * Once the decision to build up the Navy was taken, strong men of clear vision quickly rose to the top of the service hierarchy. Chief among these were Adm Ernest King and VAdm Chester Nimitz, men of such consummate skill that the ennui of the prewar years had virtually no impact upon their abilities and sensibilities as commanders or as men. Others slightly less senior were pulled forward by the enormous suction created by King's and Nimitz's rise to the top.
 * Eric Hammell, Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal November 13-15, 1942 (1988), p. 12

 * The qualities of the Nimitz character were apparent in his face, in his career, and in his heritage; combined these factors made him precisely the man he was and placed him in this particular situation at this moment in history. ... He was not a cold man, or a bad tempered man — quite the contrary — to the world he presented a figure of almost total complacency; he seldom lost his temper or raised his voice. ... It could be said that King was a driver who knew how to lead; it could also be said that Nimitz was a leader who conquered any personal urge to drive, and achieved his ends more by persuasion and inspiration to men under his command.
 * Edwin Palmer Hoyt in How They Won the War in the Pacific : Nimitz and His Admirals (2000), p. 28 - 29

 * World War II gave King the opportunity of putting in practice another conviction. His earliest studies of the Napoleonic campaigns had indicated to him that the great weakness of the French military system of the period was that it required the detailed supervision of Napoleon. His belief that one must do the opposite, and train subordinates for independent action, had been confirmed and strengthened through his years of association with Admiral Mayo. During World War II King would jokingly maintain that he managed to keep well by "doing nothing that I can get anybody to do for me," but in all seriousness he could not have survived the four years of war without having made full use of the decentralization of authority into the hands of subordinate commanders, who were considered competent unless they proved themselves otherwise, and who were expected to think, decide, and act for themselves. Upon Nimitz in the Pacific, Edwards, Cooke and Horne in Washington, Ingersoll in the Atlantic, Stark in London, Halsey, Spruance, Kinkaid, Hewitt, Ingram and many other flag officers at sea, King relied with confidence and was not disappointed.
 * Ernest King and Walter M. Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (1952), p. 645

 * As I made my way to the flight deck, I felt bitter. But when I saw the white-clad rows of sailors standing rigidly at attention, the assemblage of gold-plated officers reviewing their notes near the podium, the camera crews intending to mark this moment for posterity, and the wreckage of the battleships USS Arizona, Oklahoma, and West Virginia sitting sadly in the background, my heart started to pound. I recognized the honor the nation intended to bestow upon me. The awards ceremony passed like a great whirlwind. At 1:45, the crew of Enterprise assembled on the flight deck to welcome aboard Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, who intended to hand out nine medals: five Navy Crosses and four Distinguished Flying Crosses. I had never met Nimitz before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Months earlier, he arrived seemingly out of nowhere, handpicked by Roosevelt to whip our fleet into shape.
 * Norman Jack "Dusty" Kleiss, Never Call Me A Hero: A Legendary American Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers The Battle Of Midway (2017), p. 173

 * Nimitz trooped down the line of officers, pinning medals to our chests and shaking our hands. The first four men in line received the Navy Cross. These included Captain George MUrray, captain of Enterprise; LCDR William S. Veeder, a destroyer skipper; and two submarine commanders, Lieutenant Commanders William L. Anderson and Charles W. Wilkins. Next, Nimitz handed out Distinguished Flying Crosses to two members of Fighting Squadron Six, LCDR Clarence Wade McClusky and LTJG Roger W. Mehle. When Nimitz leaned in to pin on Mehle's medal, he whispered, "I think you'll have a chance to earn another medal in a couple of days." Mehle stood right next to me, so I just barely caught what Nimitz had said. I gave a sideways glance. What had the admiral just revealed? Earlier, I had noticed that all three of our carriers were in port, which suggested a big operation was about to happen. Now Nimitz had confirmed my suspicions with his teasing comment. I wanted to swivel my head and say, "What's this now?" but of course, I couldn't. Naturally, my nervousness skyrocketed.
 * Norman Jack "Dusty" Kleiss, Never Call Me A Hero: A Legendary American Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers The Battle Of Midway (2017), p. 174

 * Next, Nimitz came to me. He read aloud my citation: "Lt. (j.g.) Norman Jack Kleiss: As a member of a scouting squadron, he participated in the attacks on Kwajalein and Maloelap atolls, Marshall Islands, on February 1, 1942. His initiative and determination in the execution of these missions, effected in the face of enemy fighter opposition and heavy antiarcraft fire, resulted in heavy losses to the enemy, and enabled him to score a direct hit on a light cruiser." Nimitz looked at me and said, "Well done!" I remember the moment well. He looked over me carefully, just like LCDR Smith and VADM Halsey had done, and watched my facial expression. I assumed he wanted to see if I was nervous. Maybe he could tell a pilot's personality and trustworthiness just by their facial expressions. I don't know how long that look really lasted, but it felt like forever. Nimitz gave me the most careful look I ever experienced in my whole life. His stare jolted me like a shot of whiskey, his eyes penetrating and honest. When he reached out to shake my hand, I felt emboldened, ready to go back into battle and fight for him, anything to prove that I deserved this hallowed award. I experienced something I never thought possible: A leader had put the fight back in me.
 * Norman Jack "Dusty" Kleiss, Never Call Me A Hero: A Legendary American Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers The Battle Of Midway (2017), p. 174-175

 * In the Pacific we gave our enemies a costly lesson in amphibious warfare, just as in Europe we, with our allies, demonstrated successful coalition warfare. The performance of all branches of the services in Europe under General Eisenhower, in the central and southern Pacific under Admiral Nimitz, and in the southwestern Pacific under General MacArthur brought glory to themselves and to their country.
 * William D. Leahy, I Was There (1950), p. 439

 * He brought to his new job a number of advantages, including experience, a detailed knowledge of his brother officers, and a sense of inner balance and calm that steadied those around him. He had the ability to pick able subordinates and the courage to let them do their jobs without interference. He molded such disparate personalities as the quiet, introspective Raymond A. Spruance and the ebullient, aggressive William F. Halsey, Jr. into an effective team.
 * Robert William Love, on the rise of Nimitz to CINCPAC in The Chiefs of Naval Operations (1980), p. 184

 * It was very clear that as difficult as his task was - to takeover the war on the Pacific, with the Pacific fleet on the bottom of Pearl Harbor - pretty much. He never lost sight of the fact that there were human beings on both sides of that war. He did his duty; he dealt very strong blows against the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army. but he never forget that there were human beings on both sides.
 * General (ret.) James Mattis - University of California Television, 20 March 2014 (7:11)

 * After King, Nimitz was our greatest naval strategist and leader, and, as Cincpac-CincPoa, he had, after King, the biggest responsibility. Nimitz engineered, as it were, the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway; patiently but stubbornly he held out for the dual approach to Japan. He proposed the bold plan to go right into Kwajalein after securing the Gilberts, and he put it across, contrary to the advice of others. He made only two possible mistakes in the war- detaching Admiral Kinkaid prematurely from his South Pacific task force, and rejecting Halsey's proposal that Peleliu be bypassed. Nimitz probably inspired a greater personal loyalty than did any other admiral in the war. Every commanding officer, when his ship, no matter how small, put in at Pearl Harbor, was encouraged to call on Nimitz at the Cincpac-Cincpoa headquarters in Makalapa and express his views. Knowing that the finest test of a commanding officer is (in Churchill's words) "the quality of his effort," and that mistakes in battle are inevitable, Nimitz was slow to relieve any commanding officer who failed; he believed in the adage that every dog should be allowed two bites. It may be conceded that he allowed one bite too many to certain task force commanders before he relieved them; but it was fortunate for the cause that he allowed two bites to Kelly Turner, who turned out to be a practitioner of amphibious warfare second to none.
 * Samuel Eliot Morison, The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War (1963), p. 580-581

 * "Tumb-bells take!" Assistant to "Matchew". Possesses that calm and steady going Dutch way that gets at the bottom of things. "Now see here." Delights in a rough house. One of the cave-dwellers but determined to be a fusser. Spent two hours at his first hop picking up beads. Conducted a Plebe kindergarten Second Class year. Mixer of famous punches. Still survives after two years of Stewart's rhino and comic opera.
 * Description of Nimitz in Lucky Bag (1905), yearbook of the United States Naval Academy, p. 76

 * On April 13, 1943, Allied radio intelligence intercepted a message carrying the travel itinerary of Admiral Yamamoto. The detail in the message listed flight and ground schedules and included what type of fighter escort would be provided. Major Red Lasswell of FRUPAC broke the coded message. The decision of what to do with the information was left to Admiral Nimitz. Nimitz consulted Layton as to what the ramifications would be if Yamamoto were removed. They considered that he might be replaced with a better commander, and Nimitz felt familiar with Yamamoto as his opponent. Layton felt nobody could adequately replace Yamamoto, and based on this opinion Nimitz gave Admiral Halsey the authority to carry out the intercept of Yamamoto’s aircraft. On 18 April, a flight of P-38 fighters with specially selected pilots and equipped with long-range fuel tanks shot down Yamamoto’s aircraft, killing one of Japan’s top naval leaders.
 * Ricky J. Nussio, in Sherman and Nimitz: Executing Modern Information Operations (2001)

 * He surrounded himself with the ablest men he could find and sought their advice, but he made his own decisions. He was a keen strategist who never forgot that he was dealing with human beings, on both sides of the conflict. He was aggressive in war without hate, audacious while never failing to weigh the risks.
 * E.B. Potter, Naval historian at the US Naval Academy, quoted on the cover jacket of his book Nimitz (1976), ISBN 0870214926

 * In World War II, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz commanded thousands of aircraft and millions of men, amounting to more military power than had been wielded by all the commanders in all previous wars. The operations he directed and, to a large extent, devised involved projecting across the Pacific Ocean forces that blasted Japan and defeated an enormously expanded Japanese empire.
 * E.B. Potter, in Nimitz (1976), p. 1

 * In actual practice much of the Pacific war was devised by Admirals King and Nimitz. They were thus thrown into the closest cooperation, though most of the time they were far apart geographically. They maintained a constant dialogue in the form of radio dispatches, often several a day, letters, exchanges of representatives, and periodic meetings, usually in the Federal Building, San Francisco, King flying there from Washington and Nimitz from his headquarters in the Pacific. Though Admiral King's tone in communicating with Nimitz was occasionally acerbic, as was his nature, it is clear that the two commanders greatly respected each other. At the end of the war, King recommended Nimitz to be his successor as Chief of Naval Operations. Although their styles were in sharp contrast, King and Nimitz were more alike than different. Simplicity and directness were the keynotes of their characters. They were both dedicated to their country and to the Navy, though King's interests were more narrowly naval. Both were men of integrity and keen intelligence, and both were born strategists and organizers, with a genius for clarifying and simplifying and a jaundiced eye for the useless complications and waste emotion. Their chief difference lay in their attitudes toward their fellow human beings. King had little of Nimitz's understanding of, and empathy for, people. Said one of King's wartime associates, "Every great man has his blind spot, and his was personnel." King went to great lengths to draw into his command the sort of men he wanted and to eliminate those he did not. The results were not always fortunate. Several cases of his placing the wrong man in the wrong spot for the wrong reasons could be cited.
 * E.B. Potter, in Nimitz (1976), p. 32

 * On the morning of the 11th, Admirals Leahy, King, and Nimitz went to the White House to get the President's approval for the Joint Chiefs' strategic plan and for the command arrangements in the Southwest Pacific. Roosevelt received them in the Oval Office. He was obviously not well. His face was ashen and his hands trembled. Yet he smiled and turned on the Roosevelt charm for his visitors. He listened with attention to the briefing and approved the strategy. He said he was glad to see that the drives were directed toward the China coast, for he was determined to keep China in the war. Roosevelt noted that the plan did not carry through to the actual overthrow of the enemy and reminded his callers that in the Pacific war his objective was the defeat of Japan as soon as the Allies had enough forces. With regard to Manus, Roosevelt said he did not know exactly where it was and it was a matter for the Joint Chiefs to handle. Lunch was served in the office, and afterward Roosevelt brought out a packet of enormous cigars, very dark in color, that Prime Minister Churchill had accidentally left in the White House. The President offered them around, but all his guests, like himself, were cigarette-smokers. Admiral Nimitz said, however, that he'd like to take one to his housemate, Dr. Anderson, who smoke cigars. He'd have the doctor keep it for some special occasion. The President began asking irrelevant questions and making random comments. He was probably getting tired. He asked Nimitz why, after the daring raid on Truk, he had sent his carriers to raid the Marianas. Since Roosevelt prided himself on keeping abreast of the progress of the war, he obviously knew the answer. The question provided an opportunity for Nimitz to end the visit on a light note. Grinning, he said the question reminded him of the case of the elderly, fat hypochondriac who wanted to have his appendix removed. Because of his age and obesity, no local surgeon was willing to perform the operation. At last the hypochondriac obtained the services of an eminent surgeon from out of town, and the appendectomy took place. When he regained consciousness, the patient, anxious about the operation, sent for the surgeon and asked about his condition. "You're doing fine," said the surgeon. "But, doctor," the patient said, "there's something I don't understand, I have a terrible sore throat which I didn't have when I entered the hospital. What causes that?" "Well," said the doctor, "I'll tell you. In view of the circumstances, your case was a very special one, as you know. A big group of my colleagues came to watch the operation. When it was over they gave me such a round of applause that I removed your tonsils as an encore." "So you see, Mr. President," said Nimitz, "that was the way it was. We just hit Tinian and Saipan for an encore." Roosevelt threw back his head and laughed, and the visit was at an end.
 * E.B. Potter, in Nimitz (1976), p. 288-289

 * Nimitz considered the atomic bomb somehow indecent, certainly not a legitimate form of warfare.
 * E.B. Potter, in Nimitz (1976), p. 386

 * As he prepared to leave office, Admiral Nimitz was sick at heart to see the national defense being endangered by political considerations- for such appeared to him to be the case. He was almost equally disturbed by an apparent change in the character of the U.S. Navy. He had expected that in wartime, with the great influx of reservists, the Navy would undergo change. But somehow he expected that, after the war, it would again become the almost intimate association of friends he had known in, say, his Augusta days. He gradually realized that, so far as he was concerned, the Old Navy had gone forever. The Navy Department seemed to him now less like an association than like a corporation. In his own class of 1905, 144 midshipmen had been graduated. Even the immediate prewar classes never produced as many as 500 graduates. By 1947 the Naval Academy was turning out graduates by the thousand, and to these was added an increasing influx of officers from the NROTCs. The Navy was acquiring more potential commanders than there were ships to command. Nimitz, walking the corridors of the Navy Department building, was continually encountering officers he had never seen before. Above all, Nimitz was tired. For six years he had been carrying heavy burdens and had had no leave to speak of. There had been times when he regretted and rather resented Secretary Forrestal's having cut his tenure as Chief of Naval Operations from the usual four years to two. But, as December 1947 approached, he could hardly wait to lay down his burdens and get out of Washington.
 * E.B. Potter, Nimitz (1976), p. 428

 * Among the assets the United States could count was one which Nimitz would never dream of listing- the man himself. Neither President Franklin D. Roosevelt nor Secretary Knox ever served his country better than when they passed over an impressive seniority list to select this gentle, courtly and highly respected Texan to command the U.S. Pacific Fleet in a desperate hour. Nimitz became a rear admiral in 1938, and had served as chief of the Bureau of Navigation in Navy Headquarters since June 15, 1939. There he gained a reputation for hard work, zealous attention to detail, efficient organization, strict conformity to official form, as well as mature and ethical judgments. He had hoped for a sea command, but perforce accepted another desk job with no complaint.
 * Gordon W. Prange, Miracle at Midway (1982), p. 10

 * He graduated seventh- that mystic, lucky number- in the Annapolis Class of 1905. Already his classmates had him fairly well pegged. "Possesses that calm and steady-going Dutch way that gets to the bottom of things," read the Naval Academy's class book, Lucky Bag. He brought to his new command in Hawaii a solid if unspectacular background in submarines, battleships, cruisers, and Navy headquarters positions. Infinitely more important, he brought a mind, heart and spirit equal to the task. The thundering challenges, the crushing responsibilities of the Pacific command were to prove over the years that here was one of America's great men in the tradition of Robert E. Lee, whom he resembled in temperament, character, and ability.
 * Gordon W. Prange, Miracle at Midway (1982), p. 10-11

 * Superficially, Nimitz promised little in the way of picturesque "copy," for he was no exhibitionist and never raised his voice. If he had an eccentricity, it was a mild addiction to the homely pastime of pitching horseshoes. Nor did he look in the least like the popular conception of a gruff old sea dog. In fact, he appeared startlingly youthful, although his once incredibly blond hair had turned so white that some, behind his back, nicknamed him "Cottontail." He had a fresh, fine-textured complexion, and only the lines which experience and humor had etched at his nostrils and candid, steel-blue eyes, gave any hint of his fifty-seven years.
 * Gordon W. Prange, Miracle at Midway (1982), p. 11

 * The Admiral was frequently the despair of his public relations men; it simply was not in him to make sweeping statements or to give out colorful interviews.
 * Robert Sherrod, TIME journalist, in On to Westward : War in the Central Pacific (1945), p. 234; also quoted in profile of Nimitz at PBS

 * While MacArthur was a forceful and colorful personality, a man of dramatic gestures and rhetoric, Nimitz was soft-spoken and relaxed, a team player, a leader by example rather than exhortation. "The Admiral was frequently the despair of his public relations men," wrote correspondent Robert Sherrod; "it simply was not in him to make sweeping statements or give out colorful interviews." An officer recalled that during tense moments, while awaiting word of the outcome of important operations or battles, Nimitz would joke with his staff "while he calmly practised on his pistol range or tossed ringers with horseshoes just outside his office." By contrast, at such moments MacArthur "would as a rule sit stonily in his chair, chewing on the stem of a corncob pipe."
 * Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (1985), p. 145-146

 * There were contrasts as well in the two men's relations with Washington. According to one of King's biographers, Thomas Buell, the Chief of Naval Operations "never entirely trusted Nimitz's judgment," believing him to be too susceptible to bad advice and too ready to compromise with the Army. Throughout the war, King held frequent personal meetings with Nimitz, usually in San Francisco or Hawaii. By contrast, Marshall saw Army theater commanders in Europe infrequently, and MacArthur only once. King's numerous conferences with Nimitz may indeed "indicate the extent of King's anxiety to keep Nimitz under his thumb; they may also have reflected King's special interest in directing Pacific strategy.
 * Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (1985), p. 146

 * Nimitz and MacArthur differed radically in style of command. Whereas Nimitz came to Pearl Harbor virtually alone, retaining many of the members of Kimmel's staff, MacArthur brought with him from the Philippines a group of loyal and deferential- critics said sycophantic- subordinates who served as his key staff officers and assistants throughout the war. In the course of his campaigns MacArthur later developed other close personal relationships, with General Robert Eichelberger, Admiral Thomas Kinkaid, General George C. Kenney- even to some extent with Admiral Halsey- but the ascendancy of "the Bataan gang" was never challenged.
 * Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (1985), p. 146

 * Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, was a mild-mannered Texan promoted past 28 officers to take over after Pearl Harbor.
 * C.L. Sulzberger, The American Heritage Picture History of World War II (1966), p. 335

 * Nimitz decided to apply for admission to West Point after talking to two young army officers who stopped at the Kerrville hotel. Informed by his congressman that no appointments were available at the Military Academy, he accepted the offer of one to the Naval Academy, of which until that moment he had never even heard.
 * Jack Sweetman, The United States Naval Academy: An Illustrated History (1995), 2nd Edition, edited by Thomas J. Cutler, p. 150

 * Nimitz came the academy in 1901, the year one of its texts provoked the notorious Sampson-Schley controversy. The book as the third volume of Edgar S. Maclay's History of the United States Navy, which covered the Spanish-American War. Maclay charged that Commodore Schley, who with Dewey and Sampson had emerged as one of the war's naval heroes, had bungled the search for Cervera and lost his nerve at the Battle of Santiago. The outraged Schley demanded that the work be withdrawn from the academy, which it was. Unfortunately, Schley did not stop there. He also demanded a court of inquiry to investigate his conduct throughout the entire war. This had the effect of polarizing naval opinion into two hostile camps, one of which agreed with Macley's interpretation and held that Sampson deserved all the credit for Santiago, while the other supported Schley. The court did not help matters by turning in a majority report condemning Schley and a majority report exonerating him. The publicity attracted by this unseemly squabble proved an embarrassment to the navy as a whole, and the episode seems to have left a lasting impression on the minds of the midshipmen of Nimitz's generation. The extreme tact most of them later observed in discussing the command decisions they made as admirals in World War Two proceeded in part from a determination to avoid any more Sampson-Schley controversies.
 * Jack Sweetman, The United States Naval Academy: An Illustrated History (1995), 2nd Edition, edited by Thomas J. Cutler, p. 152-153

 * Like King, Nimitz did well at the academy. A midshipman company commander, he graduated seventh in a class of 114 and pulled stroke on the varsity crew. And like King, he came close to disaster in his first-class year. At its beginning, his class was moved into the completed wing of Bancroft Hall. Nimitz was assigned a room on the third floor, from which he and his friends discovered a way to reach the roof of one of the wings still under construction. There they held moonlight beer parties, dropping their empties to explode with a gratifying crash on the blocks of granite piled below. One day it fell to Nimitz to pick up the beer from the back room of an obliging Maryland Avenue tailor. Also present at the tailor's was a distinguished-looking stranger in civilian clothes. At the next meeting of his navigation class, Nimitz was aghast to find the distinguished stranger at its head, this time in uniform. He was Lieutenant Commander Levi C. Bertolette, '87, who had just joined the academy staff. Certain that he was recognized, Nimitz awaited the summons that might herald his dismissal from the academy. It never came. Although it may have been simply that Bertolette did not place him, Nimitz was convinced that he had decided to give him another chance. years later, he commented, "This escapade taught me a lesson on how to behave for the remainder of my stay at the academy."
 * Jack Sweetman, The United States Naval Academy: An Illustrated History (1995), 2nd Edition, edited by Thomas J. Cutler, p. 153-154

 * Nimitz did not take command of the fleet immediately. He spent his first week getting to know the lay of the land, with Pye often at his side. Rising each day at 6:30 a.m., he did some exercises, dressed, had breakfast, and arrived at the fleet headquarters at eight. The admiral had a phenomenally good memory for faces, and surprised old colleagues and subordinates by remembering their names. Lieutenant Commander Jasper Holmes had once served as an obscure junior engineering officer in a submarine division commanded by Nimitz. "He had little reason to remember me," wrote Holmes, but when the two men came face to face in a corridor, the new C-in-C not only greeted the younger man by name but evidently knew details of his subsequent service record.
 * Ian W. Toll, Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 (2012), p. 158

 * William Ewing, a reporter with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, thought Nimitz seemed too "kindly," too "fatherly," and his khaki uniform seemed at least one size too large. "I thought Admiral Nimitz looked more like a retired banker than the kind of hell-for-leather leader we needed to pull us out of the worst hole the country had ever been in." The remark anticipated Samuel Eliot Morison's observation that "war correspondents who expected admirals to pound the table and bellow as in the movies, were apt to wonder 'Is this the man?'" It was true that Nimitz was not a cinematic naval hero in the mold of Nelson, Decatur or Jones. Like most American officers of his vintage, he had no experience of combat. He had never even seen a shot fired in anger. But the fleet did not need a show of blood and thunder after the beating it had suffered; there was plenty of the real stuff to go around. Nimitz was an executive, a strategist, and a leader. He was a gentleman of the old school. It was not in him to shout or abuse the furniture or let a word of profanity fall from his lips. Holmes took comfort in the admiral's "aura of calm confidence" while Edwin Layton thought "the incisive thrust of his questions... made it clear that he was steeled for the tremendous task he was to assume."
 * Ian W. Toll, Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 (2012), p. 158-159

 * Nimitz crossed the dock to the headquarters and climbed the stairs to his office. He called the senior staff into the room. Having been stationed at Pearl Harbor before the Japanese attack, and having witnessed the craven recall of the Wake relief force, many of those officers carried an enervating burden of guilt, akin to a feeling of personal disgrace. They expected to be shunted off into dead-end billets for the remainder of the war, and many hoped only to be sent to sea, with a chance to redeem themselves in combat. Nimitz saw the problem clearly and understood what had to be done. "These were all fine men," he later said, "but they had just undergone a terrible shock, and it was my first duty to restore morale and to salvage these fine officers for future use, and this I proceeded to do." He spoke briefly, in a low tone. "I know most of you here," he said, "and I have complete confidence in your ability and judgment. We've taken a whale of a wallop, but I have no doubt of the ultimate outcome." December 7 would not be held against them. They were needed, and must remain, at their posts. He would listen to requests for seagoing assignments, but "certain key members of the staff I insist I want to keep." "In a very few minutes of speaking softly," one such officer recalled, "Admiral Nimitz convinced all hands of his ability to lead us out of this."
 * Ian W. Toll, Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 (2012), p. 160

 * In the U.S. Navy of 1942, ever admiral knew every other admiral, at least by name and face. But King and Nimitz had never been close, either personally or professionally. King's overbearing domination drew a sharp contrast to Nimitz's soft-spoken collegiality, and if it had been up to the new COMINCH to name Kimmel's replacement, it is safe to assume he would have chosen someone else. In letters to his wife, the Texan confided that he and King had not yet established trust or rapport. He would have to tread lightly, for when the COMINCH lost confidence in a man, the consequences were felt immediately.
 * Ian W. Toll, Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 (2012), p. 199

 * Admiral Nimitz was a very perceptive officer who recognized logic when he saw it.
 * Alexander Vandegrift, Once a Marine: The Memoirs of General A.A. Vandegrift, U.S.M.C. (1964). New York: W.W. Norton & Company, p. 171

title: Chester W. Nimitz


text:
Robert Graves

Robert Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a prolific English poet, scholar and novelist. He is most famous for his autobiographical work Goodbye to All That, and works on classical themes and mythology, such as I, Claudius, The Greek Myths and The White Goddess. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves.
 * See also:
 * I, Claudius (1976 television adaptation of the Claudius novels)

General sources

 * The dead may speak the truth only, even when it discredits themselves.
 * The Golden Fleece (1944), Invocation

 * To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
 * Reply to questionnaire, "The Cost of Letters" in Horizon (September 1946)

 * I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel abroad, experience the horror of sordid passion and — if he is lucky enough — know the love of an honest woman.
 * Lecture at Oxford as quoted in Time  (15 December 1961)

 * Anthropologists are a connecting link between poets and scientists; though their field-work among primitive peoples has often made them forget the language of science.
 * "Mammon" an address at the London School of Economics (6 December 1963); published in Mammon and the Black Goddess (1965)

 * The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good — in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
 * Quoted in The Observer [London] (6 December 1964)

 * A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end.
 * The Paris Review, "Writers at Work: 4th series," interview with Peter Buckman and William Fifield (1969)

 * Philosophy is antipoetic. Philosophize about mankind and you brush aside individual uniqueness, which a poet cannot do without self-damage. Unless, for a start, he has a strong personal rhythm to vary his metrics, he is nothing. Poets mistrust philosophy. They know that once the heads are counted, each owner of a head loses his personal identity and becomes a number in some government scheme: if not as a slave or serf, at least as a party to the device of majority voting, which smothers personal views.
 * "The Case for Xanthippe" in The Crane Bag (1969)

Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves. Of never acquiescing in a fraud; of never accepting the secondary-rate in poetry, painting, music, love, friends. Of safeguarding our poetic institutions against the encroachments of mechanized, insensate, inhumane, abstract rationality.'''
 * '''Abstract reason, formerly the servant of practical human reasons, has everywhere become its master, and denies poetry any excuse for existence.
 * "The Case for Xanthippe" in The Crane Bag (1969)

 * Even nowadays an archaic sense of love-innocence recurs, however briefly, among most young men and women. Some few of these, who become poets, remain in love for the rest of their lives, watching the world with a detachment unknown to lawyers, politicians, financiers, and all other ministers of that blind and irresponsible successor to matriarchy and patriarchy — the mechanarchy.
 * Introduction Poems about Love (1969)

 * If I were a girl, I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of a man who desrves them.
 * Robert Graves Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved July 7, 2022.

Poems

Where Tom stands at the periscope, Tired out. After nine months he’s shed All fear, all faith, all hate, all hope.'''
 * '''Trench stinks of shallow buried dead
 * "Through the Periscope" (1915) [first published in 1988]

Thirsting and hungering, Walked in the wilderness; Soft words of grace He spoke Unto lost desert-folk That listened wondering.'''
 * '''Christ of His gentleness
 * "In the Wilderness," lines 1-6, from Over the Brazier (1916), Part I: Poems Written Mostly at Charterhouse 1910-1914

He can watch a grass or leaf Every instant grow; he can Clearly through a flint wall see, Or watch the startled spirit flee From the throat of a dead man.
 * His eyes are quickened so with grief,
 * "Lost Love," lines 1-6, from Treasure Box (1919)

Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: We grow sea-green at last and coldly die In brininess and volubility.'''
 * '''There’s a cool web of language winds us in,
 * "The Cool Web," lines 9–12, from Poems 1914-1926 (1927)

As you are lovely, so be various, Merciful as constant, constant as various, So be mine, as I yours for ever.'''
 * '''As you are woman, so be lovely:
 * "Pygmalion to Galatea" from Poems 1914-1926 (1927)

Exquisite in the pulse of tainted blood, That shivering glory not to be despised. '''Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark — a shining space With the grave’s narrowness, though not its peace.'''
 * Be warm, enjoy the season, lift your head,
 * "Sick Love," lines 7–12, from Poems 1929

Of the greatness, rareness, muchness, Fewness of this precious only Endless world in which you say You live, you think of things like this''': Blocks of slate enclosing dappled Red and green, enclosing tawny Yellow nets, enclosing white And black acres of dominoes, Where a neat brown paper parcel Tempts you to untie the string.
 * '''Children, if you dare to think
 * "Warning to Children," lines 1–11, from Poems 1929 (1929)

That at the whisper of Love’s name, Or Beauty’s, presto! up you raise Your angry head and stand at gaze?
 * Down, wanton, down! Have you no shame
 * "Down, Wanton, Down!," lines 1-4, from Poems 1930-1933 (1933)

With woman whether gowned as wife or whore, Penelope and Circe seemed as one''': She like a whore made his lewd fancies run, And wifely she a hero to him bore.
 * '''To the much-tossed Ulysses, never done
 * "Ulysses" from Poems 1930-1933 (1933)

Forewarned by fear of whom he stood bound fast Hand and foot helpless to the vessel's mast, Yet would not stop his ears: daring their song He groaned and sweated till that shore was past.
 * They multiplied into the Sirens' throng,
 * "Ulysses" from Poems 1930-1933 (1933)

Flesh had one pleasure only in the act, Flesh set one purpose only in the mind — Triumph of flesh and afterwards to find Still those same terrors wherewith flesh was racked.
 * One, two and many: flesh had made him blind,
 * "Ulysses," lines 16–20, from Poems 1930-1933 (1933)

Every king's daughter sought him for her own, Yet he was nothing to be won or lost.''' All lands to him were Ithaca: love-tossed He loathed the fraud, yet would not bed alone.
 * '''His wiles were witty and his fame far known,
 * "Ulysses" from Poems 1930-1933 (1933)

Motive and end and moral in the air; Nice contradiction between fact and fact Will make the whole read human and exact.'''
 * '''Sigh then, or frown, but leave (as in despair)
 * "The Devil’s Advice to Story-tellers," lines 19–22, from Collected Poems 1938 (1938)

The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes.
 * Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean,
 * "Recalling War," lines 1–6, from Collected Poems 1938 (1938)

But an infection of the common sky That sagged ominously upon the earth.
 * What, then, was war? No mere discord of flags
 * "Recalling War," lines 11–13, from Collected Poems 1938 (1938)

War was foundering of sublimities, Extinction of each happy art and faith By which the world had still kept head in air.'''
 * '''War was return of earth to ugly earth,
 * "Recalling War," lines 31–34, from Collected Poems 1938 (1938)

The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.'''
 * '''Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon
 * "The Persian Version," lines 1–2, from Poems 1938-1945: Satires and Grotesques (1946)

That will prove worth your telling''', Whether as learned bard or gifted child; To it all lines or lesser guards belong That startle with their shining Such common stories as they stray into.
 * '''There is one story and one story only
 * "To Juan at the Winter Solstice" from Poems 1938-1945 (1946)

From woman back to woman: So each new victim treads unfalteringly The never altered circuit of his fate, Bringing twelve peers as witness Both to this starry rise and starry fall.
 * Water to water, ark again to ark,
 * "To Juan at the Winter Solstice" from Poems 1938-1945 (1946)

When with her right she crooks a finger, smiling, How may the King hold back? Royally then he barters life for love.
 * She in left hand bears a leafy quince;
 * "To Juan at the Winter Solstice" from Poems 1938-1945 (1946)

Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward. The log groans and confesses There is one story and one story only.'''
 * '''Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup:
 * "To Juan at the Winter Solstice" from Poems 1938-1945 (1946)

Do not forget what flowers The great boar trampled down in ivy time. Her brow was creamy as the crested wave, Her sea-blue eyes were wild But nothing promised that is not performed.'''
 * '''Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling,
 * "To Juan at the Winter Solstice," lines 37–42, from Poems 1938-1945 (1946)

Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean — In scorn of which we sailed to find her In distant regions likeliest to hold her Whom we desired above all things to know, Sister of the mirage and echo.
 * All saints revile her, and all sober men
 * "The White Goddess," lines 1–6, from Poems and Satires (1951)

Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of her nakedly worn magnificence '''We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.'''
 * But we are gifted, even in November,
 * "The White Goddess," lines 18–22, from Poems and Satires (1951)

A bright stain on the vision Blotting out reason.
 * Love is a universal migraine.
 * "Symptoms of Love," lines 1-3, from More Poems (1961)

Could you endure such pain At any hand but hers?'''
 * '''Take courage, lover!
 * "Symptoms of Love" from More Poems (1961)

Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

 * Full text online

Die stillborn, because old men squeal For something new: "Write something new: We've read this poem — that one too, And twelve more like 'em yesterday"?
 * The holiest, cruellest pains I feel,
 * "To An Ungentle Critic"

What wrong they say we're righting, A curse for treaties, bonds and laws, When we're to do the fighting!'''
 * '''It doesn't matter what's the cause,
 * "To Lucasta on Going to the War — For the Fourth Time"

And so decide who started This bloody war, and who's to pay, But he must be stout-hearted, Must sit and stake with quiet breath, Playing at cards with Death.''' Don't plume yourself he fights for you; It is no courage, love, or hate, But let us do the things we do; It's pride that makes the heart be great; It is not anger, no, nor fear — Lucasta he's a Fusilier, And his pride keeps him here.
 * '''Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray,
 * "To Lucasta on Going to the War — For the Fourth Time"

Spring and Fairyland are his. Truth and Reason show but dim, And all's poetry with him.'''
 * '''The child alone a poet is:
 * "Babylon"

Banishing the Lords of Faery.''' Wisdom made a breach and battered Babylon to bits: she scattered To the hedges and ditches All our nursery gnomes and witches.
 * '''Wisdom made him old and wary
 * "Babylon"

Take together to the wood, And Sir Galahad lies hid In a cave with Captain Kidd. '''None of all the magic hosts, None remain but a few ghosts Of timorous heart, to linger on Weeping for lost Babylon.'''
 * Robin, and Red Riding Hood
 * "Babylon"

With a sudden clamorous pain, When you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch You'll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.'''
 * '''When a dream is born in you
 * "A Pinch of Salt"

Laugh yourself and turn away. Mask your hunger, let it seem Small matter if he come or stay'''; But when he nestles in your hand at last, Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast.
 * '''Poet, never chase the dream.
 * "A Pinch of Salt"

Rooks above the cherry-tree, Sparrows in the violet bed, Bramble-bush and bumble-bee, And old red bracken smoulders still Among boulders on the hill, Far too bright to seem quite dead. '''But old Death, who can't forget, Waits his time and watches yet, Waits and watches by the door.'''
 * Through the window I can see
 * "The Cottage"

Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good. And there's one thing that I know well, I'm damned if I'll be damned to Hell!
 * When I'm killed, don't think of me
 * "When I'm Killed"

Walking the dim corridor; In Heaven or Hell, don't wait for me, Or you must wait for evermore. You'll find me buried, living-dead In these verses that you've read.'''
 * '''So when I'm killed, don't wait for me,
 * "When I'm Killed"

Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their heart's desire...'''
 * '''Children born of fairy stock
 * "I'd Love To Be A Fairy's Child"

Two strong ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; They live on cherries, they run wild — I'd love to be a Fairy's child.
 * Every fairy child may keep
 * "I'd Love To Be A Fairy's Child"

A dirtier, a more glorious one; Then, boys, you'll have to play, all in; It's the cruellest team will win. So hold your nose against the stink And never stop too long to think.''' Wars don't change except in name; The next one must go just the same, And new foul tricks unguessed before Will win and justify this War.
 * '''Another War soon gets begun,
 * "The Next War"

Once more with pomp and greed and rage'''; Courtly ministers will stop At home and fight to the last drop; By the million men will die In some new horrible agony...
 * '''Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage
 * "The Next War"

She will ever yet return; Hedge the flowerbed all about, Pull or stab or cut or burn, She will ever yet return.
 * With a fork drive Nature out,
 * "Marigolds"

Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return.'''
 * '''New beginnings and new shoots
 * "Marigolds"

Hey and hither, my lad.'''
 * '''Let Cupid smile and the fiend must flee;
 * "Love and Black Magic"

Country Sentiment (1920)

The soapsuds and the starch, The troops of solemn people Who to Salvation march.''' I take my book, I take my stick On the Sabbath day, In woody nooks and valleys I hide myself away. To ponder there in quiet God's Universal Plan, Resolved that church and Sabbath Were never made for man.
 * '''I do not love the Sabbath,
 * "The Boy out of Church"

These nights when I sit down to rhyme, The form and measure of that vast God we call Poetry, he who stoops And leaps me through his paper hoops A little higher every time.'''
 * '''Now I begin to know at last,
 * "The God Called Poetry"

Older than the plains and hills, And older than the light that spills From the sun's hot wheel on these.''' He wakes the gale that tears your trees, He sings to you from window sills.
 * '''He is older than the seas,
 * "The God Called Poetry"

He smites you down, he succours you, And where you seek him, he is not.'''
 * '''Riding on the shell and shot.
 * "The God Called Poetry"

He first taught lovers how to kiss, He brings down sunshine after shower, Thunder and hate are his also, He is YES and he is NO.
 * Immeasurable at every hour:
 * "The God Called Poetry"

The glorious fearful monster said "I am YES and I am NO, Black as pitch and white as snow, Love me, hate me, reconcile Hate with love, perfect with vile, So equal justice shall be done And life shared between moon and sun. Nature for you shall curse or smile: A poet you shall be, my son."
 * Then speaking from his double head
 * "The God Called Poetry"

Preserve the meaning of my rhyme: Love is not kindly nor yet grim But does to you as you to him.'''
 * '''Lovers to-day and for all time
 * "Advice To Lovers"

Vex not young Love in word or deed: Love never leaves an unpaid debt, He will not pardon nor forget.
 * Then all you lovers have good heed
 * "Advice To Lovers"

Stoops and kneels and grovels, chin to the mud.''' Out from his changed heart flutter on startled wing The fancy birds of his Pride, Honour, Kinglihood. He crawls, he grunts, he is beast-like, frogs and snails His diet, and grass, and water with hand for cup. He herds with brutes that have hooves and horns and tails, He roars in his anger, he scratches, he looks not up.
 * '''Down on his knees he sinks, the stiff-necked King,
 * "Nebuchadnezzar's Fall"

With my bones very brittle, '''Though I am a poor old man Worth very little, Yet I suck at my long pipe At peace in the sun, I do not fret nor much regret That my work is done.'''
 * I am an old man
 * "Brittle Bones"

And young was my Lily, A smart girl, a bold young man, Both of us silly. And though from time before I knew She'd stab me with pain, Though well I knew she'd not be true, I'd love her again.'''
 * '''If I were a young man
 * "Brittle Bones"

With my bones full of marrow, Oh, if I were a bold young man Straight as an arrow, I'd store up no virtue For Heaven's distant plain, I'd live at ease as I did please And sin once again.
 * If I were a young man
 * "Brittle Bones"

While we die here in stench and noise?'''
 * '''And what of home — how goes it, boys,
 * "Country At War"

Sweeps and garnishes the ground With kindly beauty, warm or cold — Alternate seasons never old: '''Heathen, how furiously you rage, Cursing this blood and brimstone age, How furiously against your will You kill and kill again, and kill''': All thought of peace behind you cast, Till like small boys with fear aghast, Each cries for God to understand, 'I could not help it, it was my hand.'"
 * Where nature with accustomed round
 * "Country At War"

Man is but grass and hate is blight, The sun will scorch you soon or late, Die wholesome then, since you must fight.'''
 * '''Kill if you must, but never hate:
 * "Hate Not, Fear Not"

That cankers root and fruit alike, Fight cleanly then, hate not, fear not, Strike with no madness when you strike.'''
 * '''Hate is a fear, and fear is rot
 * "Hate Not, Fear Not"

Are here discreetly blent'''; Admire, you ladies, read, you boys, My Country Sentiment.
 * '''Love, Fear and Hate and Childish Toys
 * "A First Review"

Nor Toys nor Country Lovers, Everything they took from my new poem book But the flyleaf and the covers.
 * Hate and Fear are not wanted here,
 * "A First Review"

Goodbye to All That (1929)

 * Graves' autobiography is famous for its vivid account of life in the trenches in the First World War (1914–18).

 * James Burford, collier and fitter, was the oldest soldier of all. When I first spoke to him in the trenches, he said: "Excuse me, sir, will you explain what this here arrangement is on the side of my rifle?" "That's the safety catch. Didn't you do a musketry-course at the depôt?" "No, sir, I was a re-enlisted man, and I spent only a fortnight there. The old Lee-Metford didn't have no safety-catch." I asked him when he had last fired a rifle. "In Egypt in 1882," he said. "Weren't you in the South African War?" "I tried to re-enlist, but they told me I was too old, sir... My real age is sixty-three."
 * Ch.12

"The Royal Welch don't recognize it socially," he answered.
 * I protested: "But all this is childish. Is there a war on here, or isn't there?"
 * Ch.14

 * Cuinchy bred rats. They came up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly. While I stayed here with the Welsh, a new officer joined the company... When he turned in that night, he heard a scuffling, shone his torch on the bed, and found two rats on his blanket tussling for the possession of a severed hand.
 * Ch.14

 * Having now been in the trenches for five months, I had passed my prime. For the first three weeks, an officer was of little use in the front line... Between three weeks and four weeks he was at his best, unless he happened to have any particular bad shock or sequence of shocks. Then his usefulness gradually declined as neurasthenia developed. At six months he was still more or less all right; but by nine or ten months, unless he had been given a few weeks' rest on a technical course, or in hospital, he usually became a drag on the other company officers. After a year or fifteen months he was often worse than useless.
 * On being in the trenches in France in 1915, Ch.16

 * There was a daily exchange of courtesies between our machine guns and the Germans' at stand-to; by removing cartridges from the ammunition-belt one could rap out the rhythm of the familiar prostitutes' call: "MEET me DOWN in PICC-a-DILL-y", to which the Germans would reply, though in slower tempo, because our guns were faster than theirs: "YES, with-OUT my DRAWERS ON!"
 * Ch.16

 * Patriotism, in the trenches, was too remote a sentiment, and at once rejected as fit only for civilians, or prisoners. A new arrival who talked patriotism would soon be told to cut it out.
 * Ch. 17

 * Hardly one soldier in a hundred was inspired by religious feeling of even the crudest kind. It would have been difficult to remain religious in the trenches even if one had survived the irreligion of the training battalion at home.
 * Ch. 17

 * Anglican chaplains were remarkably out of touch with their troops. The Second Battalion chaplain, just before the Loos fighting, had preached a violent sermon on the Battle against Sin, at which one old soldier behind me had grumbled: "Christ, as if one bloody push wasn't enough to worry about at a time!"
 * Ch. 17

 * England looked strange to us returned soldiers. We could not understand the war madness that ran about everywhere, looking for a pseudo-military outlet. The civilians talked a foreign language; and it was newspaper language.
 * Ch. 21

 * "I got shot in the guts at the Beaumont-Hamel show. It hurt like hell, let me tell you. They took me down to the field-hospital. I was busy dying, but a company-sergeant major had got it in the head, and he was busy dying, too; and he did die. Well, as soon as ever the sergeant-major died, they took out that long gut... and they put it into me, grafted it on somehow. Wonderful chaps, these medicos! … Well, this sergeant-major seems to have been an abstemious man. The lining of the new gut is much better than my old one; so I'm celebrating it. I only wish I'd borrowed his kidneys, too."
 * Ch.21

 * Opposite our trenches a German salient protruded, and the brigadier wanted to "bite it off" in proof of the division's offensive spirit. Trench soldiers could never understand the Staff's desire to bite off an enemy salient. It was hardly desirable to be fired at from both flanks; if the Germans had got caught in a salient, our obvious duty was to keep them there as long as they could be persuaded to stay. We concluded that a passion for straight lines, for which headquarters were well known, had dictated this plan, which had no strategic or tactical excuse.
 * Ch.22

 * Nancy and I were married in January 1918 at St. James's Church, Piccadilly, she being just eighteen, and I twenty-two. George Mallory acted as the best man. Nancy had read the marriage-service for the first time that morning, and been so disgusted that she all but refused to go through with the wedding, though I had arranged for the ceremony to be modified and reduced to the shortest possible form. Another caricature scene to look back on: myself striding up the red carpet, wearing field-boots, spurs and sword; Nancy meeting me in a blue-check silk wedding-dress, utterly furious; packed benches on either side of the church, full of relatives; aunts using handkerchiefs; the choir boys out of tune; Nancy savagely muttering the responses, myself shouting them in a parade-ground voice.
 * Ch. 25

 * Shells used to come bursting on my bed at midnight, even though Nancy shared it with me; strangers in daytime would assume the faces of friends who had been killed... I could not use a telephone, I felt sick every time I travelled by train, and to see more than two new people in a single day prevented me from sleeping.
 * Ch.26 On being at home in Harlech in 1919. During the First World War, the mental effects of war on the fighting men were called shell shock or neurasthenia — or dismissed altogether as cowardice. Graves describes very clearly symptoms of what would now be seen as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

 * In the middle of a lecture I would have a sudden very clear experience of men on the march up the Béthune–La Bassée road; the men would be singing... These daydreams persisted like an alternate life and did not leave me until well in 1928. The scenes were nearly always recollections of my first four months in France; the emotion-recording apparatus seems to have failed after Loos.
 * On studying at Oxford University in 1919, Ch. 27

 * At the end of my first term's work, I attended the usual college board to give an account of myself. The spokesman coughed, and said a little stiffly: "I understand, Mr. Graves, that the essays which you write for your English tutor are, shall I say, a trifle temperamental. It appears, indeed, that you prefer some authors to others."
 * Ch. 27

 * Professor Edgeworth, of All Souls', avoided conversational English, persistently using words and phrases that one expects to meet only in books. One evening, Lawrence returned from a visit to London, and Edgeworth met him at the gate. "Was it very caliginous in the metropolis?" "Somewhat caliginous, but not altogether inspissated," Lawrence replied gravely.
 * Ch. 28

I, Claudius (1934)

 * I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus … this, that and the other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles), who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as ‘Claudius the Idiot’, or ‘That Claudius’, or ‘Claudius the Stammerer’, or ‘Clau-Clau-Claudius’, or at best as ‘Poor Uncle Claudius’, am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the ‘golden predicament’ from which I have never since become disentangled.
 * Ch. 1

 * My tutor I have already mentioned, Marcus Porcius Cato who was, in his own estimation at least, a living embodiment of that ancient Roman virtue which his ancestors had one after the other shown. He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they have done nothing themselves to boast about. He boasted particularly of Cato the Censor, who of all characters in Roman history is to me perhaps the most hateful, as having persistently championed the cause of "ancient virtue" and made it identical in the popular mind with churlishness, pedantry and harshness.
 * Ch. 5

 * Athenodorus used to stroke his beard slowly and rhythmically as he talked, and told me once that it was this that made it grow so luxuriantly. He said that invisible seeds of fire streamed off from his fingers, which were food for the hairs. This was a typical Stoic joke at the expense of Epicurean speculative philosophy.
 * Ch. 5

Postumus interrupted with a warning smile: "So I was right. The degenerate Augustus insults the great Censor by employing you in his degenerate family. I suppose you have told the Lady Livia just how you feel about things?"
 * Postumus was clever: he guessed that this would make Cato angry enough to forget himself. And Cato rose to the bait, shouting out with a string of old-fashioned curses that in the days of his ancestor, whose memory this stammering imp was insulting, woe betide any child who failed in reverence to his elders; for they dealt out discipline with a heavy hand in those days. Whereas in these degenerate times the leading men of Rome gave any ignorant oafish lout (this was for Postumus) or any feeble-minded decrepit-limbed little whippersnapper (this was for me) full permission—
 * Ch. 5

 * Caligula then reintroduced treason as a capital crime, ordered his speech to be at once engraved on a bronze tablet and posted on the wall of the House [where the Senate assembled for legislative and administrative work] above the seats of the Consuls, and rushed away. No more business was transacted that day; we were all too dejected.  But the next day we lavished praise on Caligula as a sincere and pious ruler and voted annual sacrifices to his Clemency.  What else could we do?  He had the army at his back, and power of life or death over us,  and until someone was bold and clever enough to make a successful conspiracy against his life all that we could do was to humor him and hope for the best.
 * Ch. 31

Claudius the God (1935)

 * Nobody is familiar with his own profile, and it comes as a shock, when one sees it in a portrait, that one really looks like that to people standing beside one. For one's full face, because of the familiarity that mirrors give it, a certain toleration and even affection is felt; but I must say that when I first saw the model of the gold piece that the mint-masters were striking for me I grew angry and asked whether it was intended to be a caricature. My little head with its worried face perched on my long neck, and the Adam's apple standing out almost like a second chin, shocked me. But Messalina said: "No, my dear, that's really what you look like. In fact, it is rather flattering than otherwise."
 * Ch. 6

Jove sent them Old King Log.''' I have been as deaf and blind and wooden as a log. The frog-pool wanted a king. Let Jove now send them Young King Stork. Caligula's chief fault: his stork-reign was too brief. My chief fault: I have been far too benevolent. I repaired the ruin my predecessors spread. I reconciled Rome and the world to monarchy again. Rome is fated to bow to another Caesar. Let him be mad, bloody, capricious, wasteful, lustful. King Stork shall prove again the nature of kings. By dulling the blade of tyranny I fell into great error. By whetting the same blade I might redeem that error. '''Violent disorders call for violent remedies. Yet I am, I must remember, Old King Log. I shall float inertly in the stagnant pool. Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.'''
 * '''The frog-pool wanted a king.
 * Ch. 30

The Reader Over Your Shoulder (1943)

 * This "Handbook for Writers of English Prose" was written in collaboration with Alan Hodge

 * Where is good English to be found? Not among those who might be expected to write well professionally. Schoolmasters seldom write well: it is difficult for any teacher to avoid either pomposity or, in the effort not to be pompous, a jocular conversational looseness. The clergy suffer from much the same occupational disability: they can seldom decide whether to use "the language of the market-place" or Biblical rhetoric. Men of letters usually feel impelled to cultivate an individual style — less because they feel sure of themselves as individuals than because they wish to carve a niche for themselves in literature; and nowadays an individual style usually means merely a peculiar range of inaccuracies, ambiguities, logical weaknesses and stylistic extravagancies. Trained journalists use a flat, over-simplified style, based on a study of what sells a paper and what does not, which is inadequate for most literary purposes.
 * Ch. 3: "Where Is Good English to Be Found?"

 * Faults in English prose derive not so much from lack of knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience or goodwill.
 * Ch. 3: "Where Is Good English to Be Found?"

 * The official style is at once humble, polite, curt and disagreeable: it derives partly from that used in Byzantine times by the eunuch slave-secretariat, writing stiffly in the name of His Sacred Majesty, whose confidence they enjoyed, to their fellow-slaves outside the palace precincts — for the Emperor had summary power over everyone; and partly from the style used by the cleric-bureaucracy of the Middle Ages, writing stiffly in the name of the feudal lords to their serfs and, though cautious of offending their employers, protected from injury by being servants of the Church, not of the Crown, and so subject to canon, not feudal, law. The official style of civil servants, so far as it recalls its Byzantine derivation, is written by slaves to fellow-slaves of a fictitious tyrant; and, so far as it recalls its mediaeval derivation, is written by members of a quasi-ecclesiastical body, on behalf of quasi-feudal ministers (who, being politicians, come under a different code of behaviour from theirs) to a serflike public.
 * Ch. 4: "The Use and Abuse of Official English"

The habit of obscurity is partly caused by a settled disinclination among public servants to give a definite refusal even where assent is out of the question; or to convey a vigorous rebuke even where, in private correspondence, any person with self-respect would feel bound to do so. The mood is conveyed by a polite and emasculated style — polite because, when writing to a member of the public, the public servant is, in theory at least, addressing one of his collective employers; emasculated because, as a cog in the Government machine, he must make his phrases look as mechanical as possible by stripping them of all personal feeling and opinion.
 * The chief trouble with the official style is that it spreads far beyond the formal contexts to which it is suited. Most civil servants, having learned to write in this way, cannot throw off the habit. The obscurity of their public announcements largely accounts for the disrepute into which Departmental activities have fallen: for the public naturally supposes that Departments are as muddled and stodgy as their announcements.
 * Ch.4: "The Use and Abuse of Official English"

King Jesus (1946)

 * Jehovah, it seems clear, was once regarded as a devoted son the the Great Goddess, who obeyed her in all things and by her favor swallowed up a number of variously named rival gods and godlings — the Terebinth-god, the Thunder-god, the Pomegranate-god, the Bull-god, the Goat-god, the Antelope-god, the Calf-god, the Porpoise-god, the Ram-god, the Ass-god, the Barley-god, the god of Healing, the Moon-god, the god of the Dog-star, the Sun-god. Later (if it is permitted to write in this style) he did exactly what his Roman counterpart, Capitoline Jove, has done: he formed a supernal Trinity in conjunction with two of the Goddess's three persons, namely, Anatha of the Lions and Ashima of the Doves, the counterparts of Juno and Minerva; the remaining person, a sort of Hecate named Sheol, retiring to rule the infernal regions.

 * By Jesus’s time the Law of Moses, originally established for the government of a semi-barbarous nation of herdsmen and hill-farmers, resembled a petulant great-grandfather who tries to govern a family business from his sick-bed in the chimney-corner, unaware of the changes that have taken place in the world since he was able to get about: his authority must not be questioned, yet his orders, since no longer relevant, must be reinterpreted in another sense, if the business is not to go bankrupt. When the old man says, for instance: “It is time for the women to grind their lapfuls of millet in the querns,” this is taken to mean: “It is time to send the sacks of wheat to the water-mill.”
 * Ch. 21

The Greek Myths (1955)

 * Ancient Europe had no gods. The Great Goddess was regarded as immortal, changeless, and omnipotent; and the concept of fatherhood had not been introduced into religious thought. She took lovers, but for pleasure, not to provide her children with a father. Men feared, adored, and obeyed the matriarch; the hearth which she tended in a cave or hut being their earliest social centre, and motherhood their prime mystery.
 * Volume 1, Introduction

Quotes about Graves

 * When I say a man looks like a poet, I mean he looks like Robert Graves. Tall, angular, the lips sullen-sensual, the crushed but still diagrammatically aquiline nose, the rheumy eyes and their thousand-mile stare — and, with all this, a loose-limbed physicality, large, gestural: I remember him scaling the rocks that leaned up from the sandless shore — and bounding over them as he came back the other way and leapt flailing into the water. Here indeed was the warrior-poet.
 * Martin Amis, ''Experience: A Memoir (2000)

 * Graves has a very considerable brain, but his mixture is too rich. He's mad as a hatter, but brilliant.
 * Cecil Day-Lewis, quoted in Andrew Duncan, The Reality of Monarchy

 * Robert Graves stands impressively, cantankerously, comically, nobly apart from his contemporaries. You can't even classify him as the leader of his own school. He hasn't one. Indeed, it may be said that he draws his greatest strength from wrestling single-handed with the brutish mob.
 * Christopher Isherwood, editor, Great English Short Stories (1957) [Laurel TM 674623], introduction to Graves' "The Shout"

 * Graves is such a professional surpriser that only a conventional opinion from him could still shock us. It has been a unique privilege of our time to watch the building of Graves, from shell-shocked schoolboy in World War I to Mediterranean warlock, encanting at the Moon. As an expatriate in Majorca, Graves remains a bit of an Edwardian tease, as willful and unflaggingly facetious as a Sitwell; yet in another sense, he has grown more fully and richly than is given to most. His literary opinions are so quirky that they seem designed solely to start lengthy feuds in the London Times; yet in terms of his own art they are not quirky at all.
 * Wilfrid Sheed, Introduction, The Paris Review, "Writers at Work: 4th series" (1969)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Robert Graves


text:
User talk:24.164.242.160

~ Kalki 05:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:24.164.242.160


text:
User talk:216.165.20.247

~ Kalki 05:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:216.165.20.247


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User:Cassandraleo

I am a college junior at Florida Atlantic University in Davie, Florida, majoring in communications and minoring in political science. I run a small message board called Fool's Gold in my spare time (of which there is a declining amount as of late), and you can also find me on LiveJournal here and Last.FM here.

I am an atheist, and hold largely anarcho-socialist political views (although I don't think America will be ready for either full-on anarchy or full-on socialism for quite some time). Apart from following politics, I am interested in music (particularly extreme metal and progressive rock), fiction (particularly science-fiction and fantasy literature), and video games (particularly role-playing games). My handle is a variation on the Mars Volta song "Cassandra Gemini," with the Leo originating from my Zodiac sign.

You can contact me on AIM at Cassandra Leo (surprise, surprise), although you'll probably want to identify how you came into contact with my screen name so I don't think you're just some random wacko. I tend to leave an away message up frequently even when I'm not actually away; it's a product of laziness, which is something quite familiar to me.

Some bands & musicians I like
!!!, AC/DC, Alice in Chains, At the Drive-In, Atheist, Syd Barrett, Bathory, Beastie Boys, The Beatles, Beck, Jello Biafra, Big Black, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Broken Social Scene, Jackson Browne, Jeff Buckley, Burning Witch, Cult of Luna, Dead Kennedys, Decapitated, Ani DiFranco, The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Doors, Dream Theater, Bob Dylan, Edge of Sanity, Emperor, Brian Eno, Enslaved, Explosions in the Sky, Fairport Convention, Marvin Gaye, Peter Gabriel, Genesis, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Gorguts, Green Day, Guns N' Roses, Hiroki Kikuta, Hollenthon, Hüsker Dü, Iron Maiden, Isis, Jane's Addiction, Jethro Tull, Elton John, Joy Division, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, Lethargy, Lux Occulta, The Mars Volta, Massive Attack, Mastodon, Megadeth, Melvins, Meshuggah, Metallica, Ministry, Mr. Bungle, Mr. Bungle, Jim Morrison, My Bloody Valentine, Nagelfar, Nile, Nine Inch Nails, Nocte Obducta, Oasis, OutKast, Opeth, Pantera, Mike Patton, Pavement, Peccatum, Pink Floyd, Pixies, The Police, Porcupine Tree, The Postal Service, Radiohead, The Rapture, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lou Reed, Rush, Sigh, A Silver Mt. Zion, Slayer, Slint, The Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Sufjan Stevens, The Stone Roses, The Stooges, Koichi Sugiyama, Sunn O))), Tears for Fears, Tiamat, Tool, Tortoise, Nobuo Uematsu, The Velvet Underground, The Who, Brian Wilson, Wintersun, Yes, Neil Young, Zwan

Some games I like
Bubble Bobble, Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest V, Dragon Quest VI, Earthbound, Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy X, Katamari Damacy, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Marathon trilogy, Seiken Densetsu 3, Shadow Hearts, SimCity 2000, Star Ocean 3, Suikoden II, Super Mario All-Stars, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Tetris

Some authors I like
Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Dan Brown, Orson Scott Card, Noam Chomsky, Philip K. Dick, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Al Franken, Neil Gaiman, William Golding, Robert A. Heinlein, Tracy Hickman, Robin Hobb, Aldous Huxley, Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, A.A. Milne, George Orwell, Terry Pratchett, Philip Pullman, R.A. Salvatore, William Shakespeare, J.R.R. Tolkien, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, Margaret Weis, Howard Zinn

title: User:Cassandraleo


text:
User talk:24.165.212.132

~ UDScott 13:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:24.165.212.132


text:
Trevor Baylis

Trevor G. Baylis (May 13, 1937 – 5 March 2018) was an English inventor. He is best known for inventing a wind-up radio.

Quotes

 * A good idea turns every cog in your mind, making you scared of bed in case the whole machine grinds to a halt.
 * Cited in: Andrew Razeghi (2008), The Riddle: Where Ideas Come From and How to Have Better Ones. p. 104

 * As they say, art is pleasure, invention is treasure, and this nation has got to recognise that. If they can spend a fortune on dead sheep and formaldehyde, then it can spend a bit more of that money on inventors.
 * Cited in: Jonathan Sutherland, Diane Canwell (2008), Essential Business Studies A Level: AS Student Book for AQA. p. 23

 * But there is only one person I blame for getting shafted, and that’s myself. I went into the deal which I thought would secure the future of Orange Aids with culpable impetuosity. I had been used to doing business on a handshake and my word of honour, and I made the error of actually believing what the men in the pin-striped suits told me.
 * Cited in: Gerald Ashley, Terry Lloyd (2010), Two Speed World: The Impact of Explosive and Gradual Change, p. 103

 * The key to success is to risk thinking unconventional thoughts. Convention is the enemy of progress. As long as you've got slightly more perception that the average wrapped loaf, you could invent something.
 * Cited in: Daniel H. Pink (2006), A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. p. 137

title: Trevor Baylis


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User:Unbreakable MJ~enwikiquote

See my user page on WP.

Favorite quotes
See my Favorite Quotes page.

Updated by UnbreakableMJ 00:31, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

title: User:Unbreakable MJ~enwikiquote