Defense or defence refers to the protecting of oneself or others from attack, danger, or injury, and also to many strategies, tactics or ideas used to oppose attacks of various types upon individuals or societies.

Quotes

• Hattı müdafaa yoktur, sathı müdafaa vardır. O satıh bütün vatandır.
  • There is no defense line, but defense territory. This territory is the whole of the motherland!
    • Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, his order to the Turkish army at the Battle of Sakarya (26 August 1921); Turkish, as quoted in Bugünkü Türkiye (1937), by Stephan Ronart, p. 127
  • Variant: Hattı müdafaa yoktur, sathı müdafaa vardır. O satıh bütün vatandır. Vatanın her karış toprağı, vatandaşın kanıyla ıslanmadıkça terk olunamaz…
    • Variant translation: There is no defense line, but a defense territory, and that territory is the whole of the motherland.
      • English translation, as quoted in History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (1976) by Stanford Jay Shaw

• Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.
  • Abraham Lincoln, speech at Edwardsville, Illinois (11 September 1858);The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), edited by Roy P. Basler, Vol. 3, p. 95. The last two sentences appear in slightly varying form inscribed on a plaque in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty: "Our defense is in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors." -->

• Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only.
  • Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Sect. II : Of Justice and Beneficence, Chapter 2.

• Difesa miglior, ch'usbergo e scudo,
  È la santa innocenza al petto ignudo.
  • For shield and mail are less secure defence
    To the bare breast than holy innocence.
    • Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme Liberata (1581), Canto VIII, stanza 41 (tr. Alex. Cuningham Robertson)
  • Variant translation: Better defence than shield or breastplate, is holy innocence to the naked breast!

• The only thing that I’ve ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself either unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes, it’s time for Negroes to defend themselves.
  • Malcolm X, The Ballot or the Bullet speech (3 April 1964).

• Active defense is also known as offensive defense, or defense by decisive battles. Passive defense is also known as purely defensive defense or pure defense. Passive defense is actually a sham defense; active defense is the only real defense, the only defense for the purpose of counter-attacking and taking the offensive. As far as I known, there is no military manual of any value, nor is there any reasonably intelligent military expert, ancient or modern, Chinese or foreign, that does not oppose passive defense, wether strategically or tactically. Only the greatest fool or madman would hold up passive defense as a magic weapon.
  • Mao Zedong, as quoted in Mao's Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings, 1912-49: v. 5: Toward the Second United Front, January 1935-July 1937: Revolutionary Writings, 1912-49 (2017), p. 861, Routledge.

External links