Quotes by Military Leaders - Page 5

It is fatal to enter an war without the will to win it.
Douglas MacArthur
I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any treat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.
Douglas MacArthur
Hope is not a strategy
Colin Powell
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
George Washington
True patriotism sometimes requires of men to act exactly contrary, at one period, to that which it does at another, and the motive which impels them the desire to do right is precisely the same.
Robert E. Lee
Now you fear punishment and beg for your lives, so I will let you free, if not for any other reason so that you can see the difference between a Greek king and a barbarian tyrant, so do not expect to suffer any harm from me. A king does not kill messengers.
Alexander the Great
I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay hands on everything they can get.
Napoléon Bonaparte
I was taught to think about mission and people. Mission. What are you trying to accomplish? Don't do anything until you know what the mission is. Drilled into our hearts and into our heads.
Colin Powell
Death is not scary enough and not so sweet life of the human foot leaves gentility.
Imam Ali (AS)
who accompany ignorants, lives in misery.
Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib
You kept quit... When these victims wanted your help to survive, you kept quit.
paul kagame
I'm not perfect but I'll be the creator of perfection.
Colin Powell
There are no more worlds to conquer!
Alexander the Great
I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me.
Arthur Wellesley
Our enemies are Medes and Persians, men who for centuries have lived soft and luxurious lives; we of Macedon for generations past have been trained in the hard school of danger and war. Above all, we are free men, and they are slaves. There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service — but how different is their cause from ours! They will be fighting for pay — and not much of at that; we, on the contrary, shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be in it. As for our foreign troops — Thracians, Paeonians, Illyrians, Agrianes — they are the best and stoutest soldiers in Europe, and they will find as their opponents the slackest and softest of the tribes of Asia. And what, finally, of the two men in supreme command? You have Alexander, they — Darius!
Alexander the Great
...do not spare any reasonable expense to come at early and true information; always recollecting, and bearing in mind, that vague and uncertain accounts of things [are]... more disturbing and dangerous than receiving none at all.
George Washington
We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity … in fact our movement is Christian.
Adolph Hitler
Men of great ambition have sought happiness . . . and have found fame.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him.
Napoléon Bonaparte
We must achieve both security and solvency. In fact, the foundation of military strength is economic strength,
Dwight D. Eisenhower
God made them as stubble to our swords.
Oliver Cromwell
It is not in our hands to prevent the murder of workers… and families… but it is in our hands to fix a high price for our blood, so high that the Arab community and the Arab military forces will not be willing to pay it.
Moshe Dayan
Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.
Napoléon Bonaparte
My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.
George Washington
The freedom to do your best means nothing unless you are willing to do your best.
Colin Powell
Never take counsel of your fears.
Stonewall Jackson
Get correct views of life, and learn to see the world in its true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when summoned away, to leave without regret.
Robert E. Lee
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Napoléon Bonaparte
If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency.
George Washington
Men of learning in Milan have not enjoyed proper respect. They hid themselves in their laboratories and thought themselves lucky if . . . priests left them alone. All is changed today. Thought in Italy is free. Inquisition, intolerance, despots have vanished. I invite scholars to meet and propose what must be done to give science and the arts a new flowering.
Napoléon Bonaparte
, “As for a limit to one’s labors, I, for one, do not recognize any for a high-minded man, except that the labors themselves should lead to noble accomplishments.
Alexander the Great
Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
Colin Powell
If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.
OMAR N. BRADLEY
The cruel man is of misanthropic temperament, and is a man of moods, oscillating from quiet brooding to sudden explosions. If a man like this does not fight this unhappy provision of his soul during his youth, under no circumstances could he a void becoming furious - and foolish. There are those who would leave it up to God, but to ensure justice on the earth, and not fob it off to the Divinity, it is mandatory that people know both virtue and its benefits, since the virtues lead to unity among them, not the war of all against all. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to conserve them, and show that crime can only return misfortunes and destruction, including of the criminal himself. Who is the last victim of his crimes.
Frederick the Great
Now that the wars are coming to an end, I wish you to prosper in peace. May all mortals from now on live like one people in concord and for mutual advancement. Consider the world as your country, with laws common to all and where the best will govern irrespective of tribe. I do not distinguish among men, as the narrow-minded do, both among Greeks and Barbarians. I am not interested in the descendance of the citizens or their racial origins. I classify them using one criterion: their virtue. For me every virtuous foreigner is a Greek and every evil Greek worse than a Barbarian. If differences ever develop between you never have recourse to arms, but solve them peacefully. If necessary, I should be your arbitrator.
Alexander the Great
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.
George Washington
Those who have committed no faults want no pardon. We are only defending what we deem our indisputable rights.
George Washington
The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.
George Washington
LIBERTY, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
George Washington
There might, Gentlemen, be an impropriety in my taking notice, in this Address to you, of an anonymous production, but the manner in which that performance has been introduced to the army, the effect it was intended to have, together with some other circumstances, will amply justify my observations on the tendency of that Writing. With respect to the advice given by the Author, to suspect the Man, who shall recommend moderate measures and longer forbearance, I spurn it, as every Man, who regards liberty, and reveres that justice for which we contend, undoubtedly must; for if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.
George Washington
There is no place in a fanatic's head where reason can enter.
Napoléon Bonaparte
The group with it's impurities is better than sectarianism with it's purity.
Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib
The most complete gift of God is a life based on knowledge.
Imam Ali Ibn Abu Talib
Always focus on the front windshield and not the review mirror.
Colin Powell
It is easier to make our wishes conform to our means than to make our means conform to our wishes.
Robert E. Lee
There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy
George Washington
Holy shadows of the dead, I am not to blame for your cruel and bitter fate, but the accursed rivalry which brought sister nations and brother people to fight one another. I do not feel happy for this victory of mine. On the contrary, I would be glad, brothers, if I had all of you standing here next to me, since we are united by the same language, the same blood and the same vi
Alexander the Great
Pessimism never won any battle.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Perpetual Optimism is a Force Multiplier.
Colin Powell
I don’t like the idea of something where you have to depend upon the integrity of the man and not the integrity of the institution.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Don't be afraid to go to your library and read every book as long as any document does not offend your own ideas of decency.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Water, air, and cleanness are the chief articles in my pharmacy.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Those who kow-towed to the prosecution and denounced the Nazi regime got it in the neck just the same. It serves them right.
Herman Goering
It is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
George Washington
I often asked Laplace what he thought of God. He owned that he was an atheist.
Napoléon Bonaparte
It is preposterous to suppose that the people of one generation can lay down the best and only rules of government for all who are to come after them, and under unforeseen contingencies.
Ulysses S. Grant
Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. In this sense it is, that your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.
George Washington
The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.
George Washington
It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.
George Washington