“The quality of mercy is not strain’d; it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 4.1
Month: June 2025
“Multiple handling and transshipment at several points took their toll in breakage, deterioration, and pilferage. Storage north of Australia or New Caledonia was usually inadequate, and deterioration in open storage in a tropical climate appallingly swift. Rations spoiled, canvas rotted, ammunition became unusable, and machinery rusted. ‘There has been considerable wastage in all types of supplies . . . ,’ wrote Somervell from the South Pacific in September 1943. ‘This loss has been particularly high in ammunition and rations. No one really knows how much food has been spoiled. It is certain, however, that as much as 50 percent of some types of ammunition has gone to waste and hundreds of thousands if not millions of rations have been lost.’ In June 1943 an observer thought at least 40 percent of the rations in SWPA [Southwest Pacific Area] spoiled or unconsumable.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “The War Against Japan, 1943-44,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt but, being season’d with a gracious voice, obscures the show of evil? In religion, what damned error but some sober brow will bless it, and approve it with a text, hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 3.2
“Who shall go about to cozen fortune, and be honourable without the stamp of merit! Let none presume to wear an undeserved dignity. O, that estates, degrees, and offices, were not deriv’d corruptly! and that clear honour were purchas’d by the merit of the wearer! How many then should cover that stand bare! How many be commanded that command! How much low peasantry would then be glean’d from the true seed of honour! and how much honour pick’d from the chaff and ruin of the times, to be new varnish’d!” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 2.9
“Love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 2.6
“All things that are, are with more spirit chased than enjoy’d.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 2.6
“Fast bind, fast find—a proverb never stale in thrifty mind.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 2.5
“It is a wise father that knows his own child.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 2.2
“If the Japanese were not, in the last analysis, such formidable opponents as the Germans, their preference for death to surrender, and the mere physical difficulties of mounting operations against their entrenched positions, combined to make them seem so.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with a smiling cheek—a goodly apple rotten at the heart.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 1.3
“I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 1.2
“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 1.2
“They are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 1.2
“There are a sort of men whose visages do cream and mantle like a standing pond, and do a wilful stillness entertain, with purpose to be dress’d in an opinion of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit; as who should say, I am Sir Oracle, and, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 1.1 (emphasis in original)
“Now, by two-headed Janus, nature hath framed strange fellows in her time: some that will ever more peep through their eyes, and laugh, like parrots, at a bag-piper: and other of such vinegar aspéct, that they’ll not show their teeth in way of a smile.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 1.1