Officer

Famous quotes containing the word officer:

    There was something so free and self-contained about him, something in the young fellow’s movements, that made that officer aware of him. And this irritated the Prussian. He did not choose to be touched into life by his servant.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    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)

    If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, “But what shall I do?” my answer is, “If you really wish to do anything, resign your office.” When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)