What are white banners?

Famous quotes containing the words white and/or banners:

    The white man regards the universe as a gigantic machine hurtling through time and space to its final destruction: individuals in it are but tiny organisms with private lives that lead to private deaths: personal power, success and fame are the absolute measures of values, the things to live for. This outlook on life divides the universe into a host of individual little entities which cannot help being in constant conflict thereby hastening the approach of the hour of their final destruction.
    Policy statement, 1944, of the Youth League of the African National Congress. pt. 2, ch. 4, Fatima Meer, Higher than Hope (1988)

    The trumpets sound, the banners fly,
    The glittering spears are ranked ready;
    The shouts o’ war are heard afar,
    The battle closes thick and bloody;
    But it’s no the roar o’ sea or shore
    Wad mak me langer wish to tarry;
    Nor shout o’ war that’s heard afar,
    Its leaving thee, my bonnie Mary.
    Robert Burns (1759–1796)