Last Stand/Quotes
"It was four hundred years ago or more, when the Dothraki first rode out of the east, sacking and burning every town and city in their path. The khal who led them was named Temmo. His khalasar was not so big as Drogo's, but it was big enough. Fifty thousand, at the least. Half of them braided warriors with bells ringing in their hair. |
"Lord of all Noldor —Blind Guardian, "Time Stands Still"
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Captain Roima: I cry out for troops and you give me rhetoric - I plead for ammunition and you give me speeches - I ask you again, Commander, what can you pledge me? |
The green tide of Orkdom is upon us and we are alone. There can be no mercy. No surrender. If we survive this day it will be a miracle.
—Commissar Yarrick, Warhammer 40,000
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"I cannot hold out for long, but the Pfhor will not soon forget the day that a lone corvette obliterated half of Battle Group Seven, Western Arm."
—Durandal, Marathon 2
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"The Humans, I think, knew they were doomed. But where another race would surrender to despair, the Humans fought back with even greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it. They would weep. They would pray. They would say goodbye to their loved ones and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself. Never surrendering. No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable, could help but be moved to tears by their courage, their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns. When they ran out of guns, they used knives. And sticks. And bare hands. They were magnificent! I only hope, when it is my time, that I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes at the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage. But in the end, they ran out of time."
—Londo Mollari, Babylon 5
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Saladin: Will you yield the city? |
"Would it not be wondrous for this whole nation to be destroyed, like a beautiful flower?"
—General Anami, Japanese War Minister, demanding the right to continue fighting after the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
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"Nineteenth [Platoon] lasted seventeen minutes from the time the gates closed. They accounted for one-hundred and eighty nine enemy casualties. No one witnessed their heroism."
—Sabbat Martyr, Gaunt's Ghosts
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"Then out spake brave Horatius, —Thomas Babbington Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome'
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"Though it may be our part to find a bitter end before the Gate of Mordor, if we do so, then you will come also to a last stand, either here or wherever the black tide overtakes you."
—Aragorn, The Return of the King
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"We held out longer than Shreveport. We held out longer than Baton Rouge. WE HELD OUT LONGER."
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Ack! Ack! No way! I'm going out in a blaze of glory! —Boisterous Bruiser teammates, when at critical health, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky
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"On a distant, shadowed world, the protoss will make their final stand. Their heroes will gather, their forces will be marshalled, and they will die, bravely. But still, they will die."
—The Overmind, StarCraft II
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"The Guard dies, but the Guard does not surrender!"
—Napoleon's Imperial Guard's last words[1]
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Long before Custer died at the Little Bighorn, the myth of the Last Stand already had a strong pull on human emotions, and on the way we like to remember history. The variations are endless — from the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae to Davy Crockett at the Alamo — but they all tell the story of a brave and intractable hero leading his tiny band against a numberless foe. Even though the odds are overwhelming, the hero and his followers fight on nobly to the end and are slaughtered to a man. In defeat the hero of the Last Stand achieves the greatest of victories, since he will be remembered for all time.
—Nathaniel Philbrick
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GT: You always go down guns blazing. Thats what a hero does when he loves adventure and has guns. —Jake English, Homestuck
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...at one point, after hearing a rumor of the impending surrender, he ordered the telephone to be ripped from the wall so as not to receive such a detestable order.
—The last American gun firing on Corregidor, from 1942: The Year that Tried Men's Souls by Winston Groom
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- ↑ Or 'Merde' ("Shit", though a less literal translation would be "Fuck Off").