naval quotes

The Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of theThames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pupils might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctityand truth of the revelation of Mahomet.

- Edward Gibbon
^88  The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch.52.

Yesterday, December 7,1941a date which will live in infamythe United States of America was suddenlyand deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

- Franklin D(elano) Roosevelt
  Address to Congress, 8 Dec, following theJapanese attack on Pearl Harbor.