Officer

Famous quotes containing the word officer:

    I who have cursed
    The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
    Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
    Betray them both, or give back what they give?
    How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
    How can I turn from Africa and live?
    Derek Walcott (b. 1930)

    Any officer fit for duty who at this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer for a seat in Congress ought to be scalped.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    When Prince William [later King William IV] was at Cork in 1787, an old officer ... dined with him, and happened to say he had been forty years in the service. The Prince with a sneer asked what he had learnt in those forty years. The old gentleman justly offended, said, “Sir, I have learnt, when I am no longer fit to fight, to make as good a retreat as I can” —and walked out of the room.
    Horace Walpole (1717–1797)