Hard pounding this, gentlemen; let's see who will pound longest.

Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.

He who knows only victory and does not know defeat will suffer for it.

-- The founder of Japan's Tokugawa shogunate

I was originally a commoner, tilling the fields at Nanyang.

-- The legendary chancellor and military strategist of the Shu Han kingdom during China's Three Kingdoms period

Before wine, one should sing — for how long is life? Like morning dew, so many days have passed.

-- The dominant warlord of China's Three Kingdoms era

Let the boy win his spurs.

-- The greatest English military commander of the Hun

In God's name, the soldiers will fight and God will give the victory.

-- The peasant girl who reversed France's fortunes in the Hundred Years' War and was burned at the stake at age nineteen

Valor is of no service, chance rules all, and the bravest often fall by the hands of cowards.

-- The Byzantine Empire's greatest general