quote · Words worth keeping
I was thinking about honour. It's a thing that changes doesn't it? I mean, a hundred and fifty years ago we would have had to fight if challenged. Now we'd laugh. There must have been a time when it was rather an awkward question.""Yes. Moral theologians were never able to stop dueling -- it took democracy to do that.""And in the next war, when we are completely democratic, I expect that it will be quite honourable for officers to leave their men behind. It'll be laid down in King's Regulations as their duty-- to keep a cadre going to train new men to take the place of prisoners.""Perhaps men wouldn't take too kindly to being trained by deserters.""Don't you think that they'd respect them more for being fly? I reckon our trouble is that we're in the awkward stage -- like a man challenged to a duel a hundred years ago.
I was thinking about honour. It's a thing that changes doesn't it? I mean, a hundred and fifty years ago we would have had to fight if challenged. Now we'd laugh. There must have been a time when it was rather an awkward question.""Yes. Moral theologians were never able to stop dueling -- it took democracy to do that.""And in the next war, when we are completely democratic, I expect that it will be quite honourable for officers to leave their men behind. It'll be laid down in King's Regulations as their duty-- to keep a cadre going to train new men to take the place of prisoners.""Perhaps men wouldn't take too kindly to being trained by deserters.""Don't you think that they'd respect them more for being fly? I reckon our trouble is that we're in the awkward stage -- like a man challenged to a duel a hundred years ago.
Approximate author period: c. 1934 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Evelyn Waugh
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
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- Approximate author period: c. 1934 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1903 to 1966; Wikidata Q107002, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q107002 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 302833; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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