"Preparedness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... most significant element to be noted is the state of preparedness of the French navy, and to some extent of the Spanish, as compared with previous wars. England stood wholly on the defensive, and without allies; while the Bourbon kings aimed at the conquest of Gibraltar and Port ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... our strength is greatened by exercise. 'Thy shoes shall be iron and brass.' 'Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.' 'Stand, therefore, having your feet shod with the preparedness of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a striking phrase of M. Henri Bordeaux, the war found Camille Violand in a state of preparedness. He saw it arrive, not with anxiety or trepidation, but with solemn joy. His father was placed in command of a brigade of dragoons, and he himself, at another part of the frontier line, was given the rank of second ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... the expenditures for superpreparedness for war was demanding either retroaction in that regard or else an expenditure from the principal of their property. Germany did make in one year the sacrifice of five per cent. of her principal for yet fuller preparedness for war. Indeed since late in 1908, it is fair to say that consciously or unconsciously the whole world has been in travail. Whatever broad measures statesmen anywhere have promulgated, have been subjected to the unusual stress and strain of world-wide unrest. Like the treacherous ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... Such thoroughly organised preparedness as this, however, was the exception rather than the rule, for though often attempted, it rarely reached perfection or stood the actual test. The sailor was too childlike by nature to play the fraud successfully, and as ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... that this reliance is unsound both theoretically and practically. The wars in Europe since 1870-71, the many threatenings of war, and the present catastrophe seem to Americans to demonstrate that no amount of military preparedness on the part of the nations of Europe can possibly keep the peace of the Continent, or indeed prevent frequent explosions of destructive warfare. They think, too, that preparation for war on the part of Germany better than any of her neighbors can make will not keep her at peace or protect her from ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... was the position at Capetown. Here there was no room either for levity or the insolence of anticipated triumph. Knowing what Lord Milner did—what he, of all men, had most cause to know—both of our unreadiness, and of the preparedness and confidence of the enemy, he could scarcely have looked forward to the future without the very gravest apprehension. None the less the ultimatum brought with it a certain sense of relief. The negotiations, which had degenerated long since into a diplomatic farce, were terminated. The ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... for neutrality in the European war; peace and order in Mexico, preparedness for national defence, a protective tariff and women's suffrage. It also advocated some of the economic legislation favored by the-Progressives in 1912. The Progressive platform laid most emphasis on preparation for military defence-a navy of at least second rank, ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... more, who, having been committed, broke away on the night of Gornell's seizure, and found protection with the enemy, who advanced in force to receive them. This prompt proceeding suppressed the mutiny. The development of the conspiracy, the state of preparedness in the camp of Greene, and the movement of Marion, had the effect of discouraging the farther advance of the British army; and Marion, while yet in motion for the camp of Greene, from which he was but eight miles distant, was summoned in haste to the protection ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... merchants were wise enough to recognize that days might come when it would be necessary to defend their merchandise and themselves, as well as the town of Madras, from the roving robber or the princely raider or the revengeful trade-rival, and that military preparedness was a dictate ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... bed-clothes. He left his coat and waistcoat and shoes ostentatiously lying about. If there was to be a murderous attack, his idea was to invite, not to discourage, that murderous attack, and certainly not by any means to scare it away. Any indication of preparedness or wakefulness or activity could only have the effect of giving warning to the assassin, and so putting off the attempt at the crime. The old soldier felt sure that the attempt could never be made under conditions ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... in dozens of speeches in many states I have advocated your policies and the war. I was the first man of your Administration, nearly five years ago, to publicly advocate preparedness, and helped to found the first Plattsburg training camp. And if, with our troops mobilizing in France, you will give American women this measure for their political freedom, they will support with greater enthusiasm your hope and the hope of ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... touch here upon what every nurse knows so well, relating to the "preparedness" of clothes, satchel, and instruments. We take it for granted that all this is ready. The case before has been a hard one, we will imagine, and several days have been given to the luxury of whole nights in bed, and whole days of resting; this ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... service, because they saw there were no votes in such a programme; and who now"—Angus's passion rose to fever-heat,—"stand up and endeavour to cultivate popular favour by reviling the Ministry and the Army for want of preparedness and initiative. Such men do not ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... to notify you that your record is unsatisfactory, both in regard to attendance and preparedness in class, and it expects you to show improvement therein or suffer ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... displeasing to Ferdinand. He had supreme confidence in the ability of the trained French army to subdue the "Prussian militia." All France had been soundly fooled as to the extent of the German preparedness. Foch thought of Metz as the starting point of the war which was to wage its victorious course eastward. But the reverse soon proved to be the case. From Metz the Germans drove westward into France. The school at St. Clement was transformed into a military hospital. Ferdinand ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... precipitation had too often to confess itself. What is instructive, what is historic, is the probability that young persons offering themselves at that time as guides and communicators—the requirements of our small sister were for long modest enough—quite conceivably lacked preparedness, and were so thrown back on the extempore, which in turn lacked abundance. One of these figures, that of Mademoiselle Danse, the most Parisian, and prodigiously so, was afterwards to stand out for us quite luridly—a cloud of revelations succeeding her withdrawal; a cloud ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... of that for looking ahead, fellows!" ejaculated Horatio. "Hugh here took all the trouble to count the steps while passing through, the day he came up to examine the ground. That's what I call preparedness, and I guess it counts in a race, just as much as ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... might involve its support by force of arms, and he worked all his life for our military preparedness, holding that it was the best guarantee that armed intervention would be unnecessary, as it was also the best guarantee of our own immunity ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... grandly called them of old, 'winds of the soul' ([Greek: psyches anemoi]), to keep it in healthful motion and agitation, to lift it upward and to drive it onward, to preserve it from that unwholesome stagnation which constitutes the fatal preparedness for so many other ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... west the hostile Indians, constantly irritated by the encroachments of the white man, had become a growing menace. The block-houses I beheld were evidences of preparedness against this danger. And in that day the rumblings of the coming struggle over slavery could already be heard. Kansas—very soon afterward "Bleeding Kansas"—was destined to be an early battleground. And we were soon to ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... satisfaction the improvement of the quantity and quality of the output of cannon and small arms; it set the seal of the President's approval upon the new military academy; but nowhere did it sound a trumpet-call to real preparedness. ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... one can and cannot wear, from shoe leather to a feather in the hat (and the inventory includes even width of hem on a linen handkerchief), is by no means a frivolous, fruitless waste of time; it is a wise preparedness, which in the end saves time, vitality and money. And if it does not make one independent of expert advice (and why should one expect to be that, since technique in any art should improve with practice?) it certainly prepares one to grasp and ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... connected with the manufacturing impulse of these engagements, reaching over a varied surface of several hundred miles, opened up scenes of life and adventure which gave me a foretaste of, and preparedness for, the deeper experiences of the western wilderness; and the war with England was no sooner closed than I made ready to share in the exploration of the FAR WEST. The wonderful accounts brought from the Mississippi valley—its fertility, extent, and ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... to try to point out any weakness in America's preparedness program, they would probably take the production of aircraft as an instance where the government had failed. Although America was slow in producing airplanes, it must be taken into consideration that ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... the supporting troop of Sikhs failed to face the dark terrors of the defile and remained behind. This opening skirmish was the keynote to many an after success. It helped to foster a spirit of alert preparedness, readiness to seize the fleeting opportunity, and courage and determination when once committed to action. These seeds thus planted grew to be some of the acknowledged attributes of the force as it blossomed into ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... the bewilderment, to penetrate one's heart and mind, the more that one indulged a fearful curiosity as to the end and purpose of it all, the nearer one came, if not to learning the lesson, yet at least towards reaching a state of preparedness that might fit one to receive the further confidence of God. Such tranquillity as one gained by putting aside the problems which encompassed one, must be a hollow and vain tranquillity. One might indeed never learn the secret; it might be the will of God simply ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... had ordained from the beginning for His coming. He, from of old, had willed that at that moment this Son should be born, and it is to the punctual accomplishment of His eternal purpose that Paul here directs our thoughts. No doubt the world's preparedness is part of the reason for the divine determination of the time, but it is that divine determination rather than the world's preparedness to which the first words of our text must be taken ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... conversation." This bit of pastoral history, in which is nothing startling or prodigious, was at least five years previous to the "Surprising Conversions" at Northampton. There must have been generally throughout the country a preparedness for ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... and deficiencies, however, cannot fully explain the woeful inferiority of the army to the navy in preparedness. Fundamentally the defect was at the top. Russell A. Alger, the Secretary of War, was a veteran of the Civil War and a silver-voiced orator, but his book on the "Spanish-American War," which was intended as a vindication of his record, proves that ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... over. And it was the only real victory won by the land forces of America in the War of 1812. It was one of the most conclusive battles in history, and a brilliant demonstration of the military ability of Andrew Jackson. General Jackson believed in preparedness. During the second year of the War of 1812 he learned that the British planned to invade Louisiana, so he concentrated troops four miles below New Orleans in a line of entrenchments a mile in length, extending from the Mississippi River far into the swamp, making ...
— The Mentor: The War of 1812 - Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916. • Albert Bushnell Hart
... something that the preacher has in his voice. It is not in nature, or in poetry, or in music—though in all these there is soothing. It is the mind at leisure from itself. It is the perfect poise of the soul; the absolute adjustment of the inward man to the stress of all outward things; the preparedness against every emergency; the stability of assured convictions; the eternal calm of an invulnerable faith; the repose of a heart set deep in God. It is the mood of the man who says, with Browning, "God's in His Heaven, all's well with ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... entered and not by their own strength. (3) God keeps his covenants in spite of all the weakness of man. (4) God decides the issues of battles and of wars with a view to the final on-going of his kingdom. Only God and not the relative strength or preparedness of the contending armies can forecast the final issues of war. (5) The fact that God is for one does not preclude the use of strategy and discretionary methods. (6) The failure or sin of one man may defeat a whole cause and that in spite of the faithful efforts of many ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... "October 13, 1844.—Your preparedness for any fate has been one of the chief attractions of your character to me, for I believe it is deeper than a mere state of mind. But, for all that, your restlessness is uppermost just now; not as a contradictory element, for it is not; but as a ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... leisure to fling all its power into the conflict, it inspires with the consciousness of a divine ally. As Paul puts it, in his picture of the fully-armed Christian soldier, the feet are 'shod with the preparedness of alacrity which is produced by the gospel of peace.' That will make us 'ready, aye ready' for the roughest march, and enable us to stand firm against the most violent charges of the enemy. There is no such preparation for the conflict of life, whether ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... magnitude of the disaster most of them rush by and none conceives the thought of organizing help on his own initiative. They are concerned only with the welfare of their own families. It became clear to us during these days that the Japanese displayed little initiative, preparedness, and organizational skill in preparation for catastrophes. They failed to carry out any rescue work when something could have been saved by a cooperative effort, and fatalistically let the catastrophe take its course. When we urged them to take part in the rescue work, they did everything willingly, ...
— The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki • United States
... don't they ever look into their own bodies? They couldn't live a day on non-resistance to evil. Every one of their bodies is thronged with fighting soldiers. Every pacifist is a living lie. Phagocytes, that's what they are—white corpuscles—and it's all they're there for. They believe in preparedness hard enough. See 'em march up to fight when there's an invasion! And how they do fight! These pacifists belie their own construction. They're built on a fight from the ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... Antrim could see the threat of those youthful passions; the lurking eagerness for violent action; the hint of preparedness, of readiness. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... all his caution and method and preparedness, his heart all at once gave a leap and a pause that was almost horrid. His hand had found the slippers, but he was still on his knees; save for this circumstance he would have fallen. The bed was a low one; the groping for the slippers accounted for the turn of his ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... Christians in the same form—the Shortness and Uncertainty of life. Our Lord enjoins men to work while it is day for the night cometh; and in view of the suddenness and unexpectedness of the coming of the Son of Man He exhorts to watchfulness and preparedness. A similar thought forms the background of the apostle's conception of life. His entire view of duty as well as his estimate of earthly things are tinged with the idea that 'the time is short,' and that 'the Lord is at hand.' Christians are exhorted, therefore, to sit lightly to all worldly ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... can grumble—especially at his own government. But there was no lack of a real unity of purpose, nor of a solid, cheerful, bull-dog determination to hang on to the enemy until he came down. It is this spirit that has enabled a nation, which was almost ignorant of what military preparedness meant, to put between three and four million troops into the field in defense of justice ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... need to prepare her. She was never not prepared. It was as if by her preparedness, by the absence of preliminaries, of adjustments and arrangements, he was always there, lodged in the innermost chamber. She had set herself apart; she had swept herself bare and scoured herself clean for him. Clean ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... then, with equal deliberation, I dropped my hand into my pocket where my revolver lay. If some one sprang at me and tried to crack my head or stab me,—stabbing was popular hereabouts,—I was in a state of armed preparedness. But when I stepped inside I found an empty room, a bed in which no ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... your Guildhall speech, sending Kitchener to strengthen the feebleness of Sir Eldon Gorst, the Turks and Germans might have succeeded in their invasion and have cut off the Suez Canal. So you laid the ground for preparedness not only in this country ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... somewhat erratic course, for he found it impossible to keep his eye on the lubber's mark while the bound quartermaster glared balefully at him from the floor. Indeed Riggins had been pondering his fate should that husky Teuton ever get the upper hand again; hence, when he found himself in a state of preparedness and was informed that he must stick by the wheel until relieved, the prospect did not awe him in the least. The present odds were counterbalanced by the strategic position held by the ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Intelligence at the War Office. I was relieved to find that, although in some particulars my new coadjutor's views differed from mine, we were in accord upon all essential points, particularly as to the value of the Indian Army and the necessity for its being maintained in a state of preparedness for war. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... a tariff on those articles which have no bearing upon military power. But the most recent application of science and the mechanical arts to the uses of war has given new significance to a larger policy of industrial preparedness for military purposes. The year 1914 doubtless ushered in for the world a new epoch of protective and discriminatory tariff legislation determined by political rather than ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... if the race for armaments were to continue after the conclusion of peace, for it would mean the economic ruin of all states. Before the war began the military burdens to be borne were heavy—though we specially note that Austria-Hungary was far from being on a high level of military preparedness when we were surprised by the outbreak of war, and it was only during the war that she resumed her armaments—but after this war an open competition in armaments would render state burdens all round simply intolerable. In order to keep a high standard of ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... a meaning that the words had a sound of suddenness; yet there was always in Nanda's face that odd preparedness of the young person who has unlearned surprise through the habit, in company, of studiously not compromising her innocence by blinking at things said. "How CAN I?" she asked, but appearing rather to take up the proposal than to ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... we missed Ma. She had slipped into the house to wash her feet. Ma was a great believer in preparedness, whether having something cooked ahead for supper, ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... rushed off to his bedroom, and was examining a revolver there. He examined it carefully, keenly. Preparedness was Dudley Pickering's slogan. He looked rather like a stout sheriff in ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... Connecticut.[145] "The British force stationed in our waters having occasioned great inquietude along the whole of our maritime frontier, every precaution consistent with due regard to the general safety has been adopted for its protection.... In our present state of preparedness, it is believed a descent upon our coast will not be attempted; a well-grounded hope is entertained that it will be attended with little success. Unfortunately, we have not the means of rendering our navigation equally secure. Serious ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... rushed upward toward him Mallory had all the advantage of position and preparedness, and had he done what Billy Byrne would have done under like circumstances he would have planted a kick in the midst of the mucker's facial beauties with all the power and weight and energy at his command; but Billy Mallory ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... fear anybody mah own size, but Ah cert'nly does have some mighty scary times when Ah meets some people Ah might mention. Ah wish Ol' Mother Nature had done gone and given me something fo' to make people as scary of me as they are of yo'. Ah cert'nly believes in preparedness after seein' yo', Brer Skunk. Ah cert'nly does just that very thing. Have yo' found any nice ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess
... a moment he refrained. Nor did Ekstrom speak or stir; sitting sideways at his table, negligently, with knees crossed, the German likewise kept a hand buried in the pocket of his heavy, dark ulster. Thus neither doubted the other's ill-will or preparedness. And through thirty seconds of silence they remained at pause, each striving with all his might to read the other's purpose in his eyes. But there was this distinction to be drawn between their attitudes, that whereas Lanyard's ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... not a substitute for scouting but a development of it. Only boys over 15 years of age are eligible to join a sea scout ship, though a preliminary rank, that of Cabin Boy, is open to younger scouts who are able to meet certain tests in "water preparedness" ...
— Educational Work of the Boy Scouts • Lorne W. Barclay
... critic has put it, "to dig his toes in and hold on." On matters of method, however, where a basic principle is not involved, he is flexible. According as you approve or disapprove of him, he is "capable of development" or "inconsistent." Thus he completely changed front on the question of preparedness from 1914 to 1916. When the question of the initiative and referendum arose in Oregon, his attitude was the reverse of what it had been as professor of politics. When matters of detail are under discussion, he has displayed much willingness for and some skill ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... France supported by Great Britain and Russia, or keep Belgium, except as a subject and hostile province, and in defiance of the public opinion of the civilized world. In seven months Great Britain and France have made up for their lack of preparedness and have brought the military operations of Germany in France to a standstill. On the other hand, Great Britain and France must already realize that they cannot drive the German armies out of France and Belgium without a sacrifice of blood and ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the paper before me. I'll read you the names," she returned with businesslike preparedness: "Mr. James Jameson-Guff, Mr. G. W. Mason, Mr. ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... on from the bison to the stag the beauty is evident enough. A stag carries himself right royally, and has a rugged, majestic beauty all his own. There are few more beautiful sights in the animal world than that of a lordly stag standing tense with preparedness to turn swiftly, and, on the instant, bound ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... and one of the earliest recollections of the future admiral was being sent into the loft, on the approach of a party of these, while his mother with an axe guarded the door, which she had barricaded. This unsettled and dangerous condition necessitated a constant state of preparedness, with some organization of the local militia, among whom George Farragut held the rank of a major of cavalry, in which capacity he served ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... of this story is to give an idea of what might happen to America, being defenceless as at present, if she should be attacked, say at the close of the great European war, by a mighty and victorious power like Germany. It is a plea for military preparedness in the United States. ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... one on the Mediterranean, and maintaining a patrol all round the rim of the Pacific Ocean, Britain will cease to be a naval power. A mere annual expenditure of fifty million pounds sterling will suffice for such thin pretence of naval preparedness as a disarmed ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock |
