Famous quotes containing the words mercenary and/or soldier:
“These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth’s foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)
“I have no doubt that soldiers well drilled are, as a class, peculiarly destitute of originality and independence.... It is impossible to give the soldier a good education without making him a deserter. His natural foe is the government that drills him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)