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ORIGINAL: Yakface
Undoubtedly true. When dealing with large numbers of people....the entire population of the world..... there is always something to support everyones position.

However:
a) The statement is blanket in nature - ie 'all' that doesn't kill us makes 'everyone' stronger. Patently not so.

b) The vast majority of severely disabling conditions/experiences will have a debilitiating effect far in excess of their benefit (needing a very dubious interpretation of 'stronger')

It's probably best interrpretted as 'try to make the best of even a bad situation' or 'always look on the bright side of life' (de-dum, de-dum-de-dum-de-dum).

Don't disagree with you. We just look at the same things from different perspectives.

But, this discussion kind of fits another one of my favorite quotes:

"Get on with living, or get on with dying".

-Shawshack Redemption-

ORIGINAL: Yakface

ORIGINAL: Charbroiled

ORIGINAL: Yakface




Without turning an amusing little thread into doom and gloom......lets take a few examples -

chronic disease

Losing limbs

suffering brain damage

Abuse as a child often has an extremely detrimental effect on the self belief of the adult

You would have to have a very unusual definition of 'stronger' to fit these into Nietzsche's quote. I'm sure there are thousands of other examples involving drugs, trauma (physical and mental) and human biology.

And for each of those situations, I can probably find an example of someone that has became a stronger person because of those life situation. Not everyone can mentally overcome the hardships that life throws at you, but a lot of people use these "hardships" to fight harder.

An example:

"In August 1921, while the Roosevelts were vacationing at Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Roosevelt contracted an illness, at the time believed to be polio, which resulted in Roosevelt's total and permanent paralysis from the waist down. For the rest of his life, Roosevelt refused to accept that he was permanently paralyzed. He tried a wide range of therapies, including hydrotherapy, and, in 1926, he purchased a resort at Warm Springs, Georgia, where he founded a hydrotherapy center for the treatment of polio patients which still operates as the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation. After he became President, he helped to found the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now known as the March of Dimes). His leadership in this organization is one reason he is commemorated on the dime."

Undoubtedly true. When dealing with large numbers of people....the entire population of the world..... there is always something to support everyones position.

However:
a) The statement is blanket in nature - ie 'all' that doesn't kill us makes 'everyone' stronger. Patently not so.

b) The vast majority of severely disabling conditions/experiences will have a debilitiating effect far in excess of their benefit (needing a very dubious interpretation of 'stronger')

It's probably best interrpretted as 'try to make the best of even a bad situation' or 'always look on the bright side of life' (de-dum, de-dum-de-dum-de-dum).

[8D] Heavy guys , heavy.... Dueling philosophers...No Kant , or Aquinas? Or Monty Python? [:D]

nuts

I love the quote that Lt Winters is supposed to have said in "Band of Brothers" during the Battle of the Bulge when informed that the Germans were about to cut the last road out of Bastogne.

"We're paratroopers. We're supposed to be surrounded."

Chez

"Retreat, h*** we're just advancing in a different direction."

"It's a good day to die." [:-]

"Standards set by precedent are based on something less than average performance, and, for that reason, one should not submit to them"

E. Rommel
N. Africa
April 1941

[:)] Wasn't there a German General who said something to the effect that "why should we study American tactics/doctrine ? The Americans don't?"[:)]

A couple for me:
 
"Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won."
   -The Duke of Wellington after the Battle of Waterloo
 
"We're paratroopers, Lieutenant. We're supposed to be surrounded."
   - CPT Richard Winters upon learning that his unit was surrounded at Bastogne

One with a WITP perspective:

"We want to get the hell over there. The quicker we clean up this Goddamned mess, the quicker we can take a little jaunt against the ****** ******* Japs and clean out their nest, too. Before the Goddamned Marines get all of the credit."
- General George S. Patton, Jr
(addressing to his troops before Operation Overlord, June 5, 1944)

"Just hold on a little longer, boys; we're sucking them into 40-mm range."

"Improvise, overcome and adapt". A crusty ol' Chief told me this when I was at "A" school... and that was WAAAYYYYY before Clint said it.

Whipple

Oh and this one also:

"King Henry V:

What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmorland. No, my fair cousin:
If we are marked to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will, I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It ernes me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace, I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more.
Rather proclaim it presently through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart. His passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the Feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a-tiptoe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day and live t'old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian":
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. (IV, iii)"


Whipple

[:D] PPPPPP[:D]  From my "A" school  Proper planning prevents pxxx (pretty) poor perfomance.

Clausewitz (if I'm not mistaken)

EDIT: I AM mistaken [:(]

"Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,
That here obiedient to their laws, we lie."

"Come home with your shield or on it."

"War is all hell." -- W. T. Sherman

"Dammit boys, they're getting away!" -- Unidentified USN sailor on board USS Fanshaw Bay (CVE 70) at the Battle of Samar. [You have to know the context to appreciate the irony.]

"No other terms than unconditional and immediate surrender. I propose to move immediately upon your works." - U.S. Grant

"I will grant him six feet of ground or as much more as he needs, as he is taller than most men." - Harold Godwinson

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: Yakface

ORIGINAL: Charbroiled

"That which does not kill us, makes us stronger"

-Friedrich Nietzsche

It's a pity that quote holds little water

[:D] I don't know about that...ever eaten at a Navy (insert your favorite branch of service here) chowhall? [:D]

I don't think the Air Force can complain...we used to plan our runs to be near an Air Force chow hall around chow time...[:D]

One of my favorites...

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

And I always love what Will Rogers had to say...

Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.
Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.
Will Rogers (1879 - 1935), New York Times, Dec. 23, 1929

Some of my favorite have already been mentioned - e.g. Smith at Chosin. But here's another:

"I never trust a fighting man who doesn't smoke or drink." - Halsey

My favorite from Shakespeare: "Cry 'Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war."

Most melodramtic/inspirational: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." - Churchill

Another good one from Churchill: "If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons." (In reference to aid to the Soviet Union.)