Fencing Quotes...

[CountAntonio]

I was just looking around the net and found quiete a few..

"Using a sword is like sex. It's all a matter of balance, leverage and timing."
-Bob Anderson


“Hold your sword as if you were holding a bird in your hand: not too lightly to prevent his escape and not too tightly to prevent him choking”
-Justin LafaugerI, 1826

“Time and quality of work will provide better results than selection based on any champion profile; we dont select champions, they select themselves by work, passion and determination to achieve the highest results”--Janusz Rednarski

"Fencing is a game of subtlety, and bluff can be met with counter-bluff"
-Charles L. de Beaumont

"Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even."
-Muhammad Ali

"The leading coaches of the world unanimously agree that epee has become the premier weapon to fence and to watch"
-Bob Anderson

"Weapons are like significant others...if you found them cheap to start with...they usually don't remain faithful for long"
-Canadian Armoury Guildmaster

"I've looked at photographs of myself during concerts and it sometimes looks as if I'm in a fencing move, with a guitar in my hands instead of a sword."
-Neil Diamond

"I'm a ham. I was immediately attracted to fencing because it seemed like a romantic, melodramatic form of combat."
-Bruce Dickinson

"I loved fencing and dancing and elocution."
-Vivien Leigh

“The book deals with being an honorable person in a dishonest world. The Fencing Master does not sell himself. That's his tragedy, and that is also his strength and his glory”
-Arturo Perez Reverte

[OROD]

..."The leading coaches of the world unanimously agree that epee has become the premier weapon to fence and to watch"
-Bob Anderson...

I think you made a small typo there... let me correct it for ya:

"The leading coaches of the world unanimously agree that foil has become the premier weapon to fence and to watch"

Ahh, much better.


.

[RebelFencer]

That Muhammed Ali quote has been my favorite quote for the past couple years.

[Dr. Pfleschbach]

Here's a quote from the epee coach at my club as he addressed the youth fencers after an especially hard training session:

"You all suck!"

And this is what the kids at my club say to pump up a team mate before a bout:

"Don't suck!"

Not exactly inspiring, but it seems to do the trick.

[Black Jeebus]

I'm a huge fan of the "Don't suck!" As well as, "Pointy end into the shiny part!"

[TitanHawk]

I've always been a fan of
Don't miss, don't get hit.

[CountAntonio]

I didnt right these quotes lol just posted them...I agree on the foil part though.

[Adler]

"This is fencing not billiards!" Gabor Bognar after a student missed a hit to thigh during a lesson.

[fencingfrog]

after one of my friends ran at another yelling "che viva viva la revolution!" our ref awarded the yelling fencer a yellow card, and to make it fair, gave his opponent a "free war cry" the call went like this: "um, attack from the left is good. one yellow card to the left, one free war cry to the right."
this doesn't seem as funny in print, but whatever. the yelling fencer was also about 100 lbs heavier and 8 in taller that his opponent. just try to picture this...

another time "point to this dude. *points to his left* cool dude 8, shadowspawn, zero." (i'm shadowspawn. don't ask why)

[theLuz]

This is attributed to Chaba Altash (sp) in New York.

Two fencers had come in and paid a floor fee to fence. The went to an unused strip and began fencing with sabers, except thay were just beating each other with them.

Chaba left his lesson and came over to them and asked, "What game is this?"

[keropie]

Csaba Elthes, fwiw.

Was also known for:

"Sir, this is fencing, not dancing. If you want dancing, go down the hall"
(when his student would take extra steps)

"Perhaps you like bowling? Yes, I think bowling is a better sport for you"
(to my coach, actually, but we think in jest... though Coach was there to learn to coach, not to fencer)

"Must... hit... target, sir!"
(when a saber fencer would miss a belly cut, almost always because Csaba had leaned away from the cut)

[Phaeton]

"The essence of fencing is difference between quotation, a noun, and quote, which would be a verb." --Phaeton

[oiuyt]

"Perhaps you like bowling? Yes, I think bowling is a better sport for you"
(to my coach, actually, but we think in jest... though Coach was there to learn to coach, not to fencer)

I know another former student of his who has a story with an almost identical quote, so I think it was a regular part of his repetoire.

-B

[Frank Pratt]

In college, my coach made up a t-shirt that said "Sewanee Fencing: The True Pleasure of the Fleche." It's still my favorite fencing t-shirt.

[Montoya]

What? No quotes from Jeff Bukantz?

[AllenJ]

"That there are persons of mistaken ideas in almost every Art or Science, is what few will deny. Yet I am inclined to believe there are more eroneous opinions entertained with reguard to the Art of using the Sword than on most other subjects."
-Joseph Roland, 1809

[jeff]

What? No quotes from Jeff Bukantz?

His noted line was "Going, going, .... gone!" There's a story behind that...

[Schiavona]

Not exactly a fencing quote, but one that I have always felt described my fencing.

"Clever stratagems are quite beyond my powers, but if it is rank foolishness you require, I have no end of it."-Neal Stephenson, the Confusion

[c3l2vantes]

Coming therefore first to this weapon, as unto that on which

is grounded the true knowledge of this Art, being of

reasonable length, and having edges and point, wherein it

seems to resemble every other weapon, It is to be

considered, that forasmuch as it has no more than two edges

and one point, a man may not strike with any other than

with these, neither defend himself with any other than with

these. Further all edge blows, be they right or reversed,

frame either a circle or part of a circle: of the which the

hand is the Center, and the length of the sword, the

Diameter.
---DiGrassi

[Purple Fencer]

“Hold your sword as if you were holding a bird in your hand: not too lightly to prevent his escape and not too tightly to prevent him choking”
-Justin LafaugerI, 1826

Man...I think we ALL heard that one when we first started out...I know I did... and I still hear it!