Quotes by Military Officers - Page 2

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.
General George S. Patton
Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.
General Douglas MacArthur
War is fear cloaked in courage.
General William Westmoreland
One of man's finest qualities is described by the simple word "guts"-the ability to take it. If you have the discipline to stand fast when your body wants to run if you can control your temper and remain cheerful in the face of monotony or disappointment you have "guts" in the soldiering sense.
Colonel John S. Roosman
One man with courage makes a majority.
Andrew Jackson
Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.
George S. Patton
Wars may be fought with weapons but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.
General George S. Patton
Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.
General William T. Sherman
The fixed determination to have acquired the warrior soul to either conquer or perish with honor is the secret of victory.
General George S. Patton
I often feel like the director of a cemetery. I have a lot of people under me but nobody listens!
General John Gavin
You say to your soldier 'Do this' and he does it. But I am obliged to say to the American 'This is why you ought to do this' and then he does it.
Baron von Steuben
There is a time for all things a time to preach and a time to pray but those times have passed away there is a time to fight and that time has come!
General Peter Muhlenberg
Take time to deliberate but when the time for action arrives stop thinking and go in.
Andrew Jackson
Authority, without any condition and reservation, belongs to the nation.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
In the era of globalization, everything is interconnected. A problem in one part of the world will definitely impact on other parts of the globe. Such phenomenon is also valid for defense and security context. A conflict in a state will bring implications in its neighboring countries or other countries extended in the same region. Therefore, collaborative efforts in tackling common defense and security problems are essentially required.
Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono
In the future, we should anticipate seeing more hybrid wars where conventional warfare, irregular warfare, asymmetric warfare, and information warfare all blend together, creating a very complex and challenging situation to the combatants; therefore it will require military forces to posses hybrid capabilities, which might help deal with hybrid threats.
Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono
The organization of supplies, the command of men, anything in any way constructive requires more than intellect; it requires energy and drive and an unrelenting will to serve the cause, regardless of one's personal interests.
Erwin Rommel
Live for something rather than die for nothing.
George S. Patton Jr.
My head was dizzy, but what of that? Float, stupid wooden head, and care nothing for tomorrow.
Irfan Orga
I have always been afraid of banks.
Andrew Jackson
It may sound corny, but what's wrong with wanting to fight for your country. Why are people reluctant to use the word patriotism?
Jimmy Stewart
The reason that the American Navy does so well in wartime is that war is chaos, and the Americans practice chaos on a daily basis.
Karl Dönitz
The Howeitat spread out along the cliffs to return the peasants' fire. This manner of going displeased Auda, the old lion, who raged that a mercenary village folk should dare to resist their secular masters, the Abu Tayi. So he jerked his halter, cantered his mare down the path, and rode out plain to view beneath the easternmost houses of the village. There he reined in, and shook a hand at them, booming in his wonderful voice: 'Dogs, do you not know Auda?' When they realized it was that implacable son of war their hearts failed them, and an hour later Sherif Nasir in the town-house was sipping tea with his guest the Turkish Governor, trying to console him for the sudden change of fortune.
T.E. Lawrence
To the union of all honest men.
Aaron Burr Jr.
You cannot run faster than a bullet
Idi Amin
Every war and conflict that the United States enters has its own ROE [rules of engagement]. Contrary to what most people think, the U.S. military does not have a complete license to kill, even in wartime. We are not a barbaric state, and we do not enter any war with the intention of unilaterally killing anything in our path. We go out of our way to spare civilian lives, to keep those who are not in the war out of it--sometimes even at the expense of risking our own soldiers' safety. We do this by creating strict rules to which our soldies adhere. These rules govern when they can fire, when they cannot; what type of force they can use, what type they cannot; what they can do in particular situations, and what they cannot. The reason for this is that battles can become very confusing very quickly, and a common soldier needs simple rules to guide him, to know when he is or is not allowed to kill--and who is and is not the enemy.
Michael DeLong
As a ground-combat force approaches the deadly zone and moves within range of the enemy’s rifles, mortars, and machine guns, the dynamics of war become more art than science. Intangibles such as training, confidence, leadership, and cohesion provide more secure mantle of protection than the possession of superior equipment.”There is as much folklore as science in the accounts of maneuver units that do exceptionally well in close combat. Empirical and anecdotal evidence gathered from combat studies of the Second World War, Korea, and Vietnam has shown conclusively that elite maneuver units, carefully selected and trained, not only perform better in combat but do so with many fewer casualties from all sources of combat incapacitation (for example, from disease and combat fatigue). Such units fight so effectively because they are composed of soldiers of exceptionally quality – better trained and better led as well as coalesced through long-term association that builds familiarity and mutual trust. The difference between carefully trained and led units and those of lesser quality is dramatic.
Robert H. Scales Jr.
A properly educated leader, especially when harassed and under pressure, will know from his study of history and the classics that circumstances very much like those he is encountering have occurred from time to time on this earth since the beginning of history. He will avoid the self-indulgent error of seeing himself in a predicament so unprecedented, so unique, as to justify his making an exception to law, custom or morality in favor of himself. The making of such exceptions has been the theme of public life throughout much of our lifetimes. For twenty years, we've been surrounded by gamesmen unable to cope with the wisdom of the ages. They make exceptions to law and custom in favor of themselves because they choose to view ordinary dilemmas as unprecedented crises.
James B. Stockdale
Battle is an orgy of disorder.
George S. Patton
We had been hopelessly labouring to plough waste lands; to make nationality grow in a place full of the certainty of God… Among the tribes our creed could be only like the desert grass – a beautiful swift seeming of spring; which, after a day’s heat, fell dusty.
T.E. Lawrence
Only a foolish woman would allow her man to earn his living as a moving target.
David H. Hackworth
...It is a proud privilege to be a soldier – a good soldier … [with] discipline, self-respect, pride in his unit and his country, a high sense of duty and obligation to comrades and to his superiors, and a self confidence born of demonstrated ability.
George S. Patton Jr.
In carrying out a peacekeeping mission where the grand strategy is to maintain peace and order by persuading armed parties or other hostile elements to back away from aggressive activities, military strength is not a definite measure of success; neither could material contribution alone guarantees the "winning of the hearts and minds" of the people. What appears to be important is the day-to-day conduct of the peacekeepers on the ground; those who uphold the principles of neutrality and impartiality, as well as those who are able to carry all aspects of its operational duties exceptionally.
Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono
It is often possible to decide the issue of a battle merely by making an unexpected shift of one's main weight.
Erwin Rommel
But courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility.
Erwin Rommel
I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities.Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.
Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord
The truth has no agenda.
General George Patton
It always seemed to me a bit pointless to disapprove of homosexuality. It's like disapproving of rain.
Francis Cornwallis Maude
The virtue of its Citizens is the only Support of a Republican government
William Henry Harrison
An easy life is rarely meaningful and a meaningful life rarely easy.
Oliver North
It is altogether reasonable to conclude that the heavenly bodies, alias worlds, which move or are situate within the circle of our knowledge, as well all others throughout immensity, are each and every one of them possessed or inhabited by some intelligent agents or other, however different their sensations or manners of receiving or communicating their ideas may be from ours, or however different from each other.
Ethan Allen
To this day, I believe the unity of the world's countries in the fight against terror is more powerful than the fight itself.
Michael DeLong
Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.
George S. Patton Jr.
Never put off for tomorrow, what you can do today.
Aaron Burr
In peace-armies discipline meant the hunt, not of an average but of an absolute; the hundred per cent standard in which the ninety-nine were played down to the level of the weakest man on parade…. The deeper the discipline, the lower was the individual excellence; also the more sure the performance. – T. E. Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom
T.E. Lawrence
There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else.
Peyton C. March
Author says he suffered from both "a craving to be famous" and "a horror of being known to like being known.
T.E. Lawrence
We lived always in the stretch or sag of nerves, either on the crest or in the trough of waves of feeling.
T.E. Lawrence
Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.
James A. Garfield President of the United States
Imperialism is a system of exploitation that occurs not only in the brutal form of those who come with guns to conquer territory. Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms, a loan, food aid, blackmail . We are fighting this system that allows a handful of men on Earth to rule all of humanity.
Thomas Sankara
Don't listen to anyone but me
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
Q. How soon do you expect Argentina to be returned to democratic government?A. We believe we are already within a democratic system. Some factors are still missing, like the expression of the people's will, but nevertheless we still think we are within a democracy.
Roberto Eduardo Viola
No matter how fast weapons and technology evolve in the 21st century, one thing remains constant is that war is a human endeavor, a grueling contest between two learning and adaptive forces. Victory, therefore rests on how smart, how tough, and how dedicated our boots on the ground.
Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono
The soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers. The Soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one’s country
George S. Patton Jr.
Whoever has the sword will have the earth.
Oliver North
France is to me the heroine in the romance of all the nations of all time. This feeling was born in me years ago when I read how her noble sons had defended America in its cradle. Today I am proud that I am one of the millions who will come to save our heroine from the clutches of the villain from across the Rhine.
William Arthur Sirmon
Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country.
Marquis De Lafayette
True republicanism is the sovereignty of the people. There are natural and imprescriptible rights which an entire nation has no right to violate.
Marquis De Lafayette
If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed, they will fall by the hands of the clergy.
Marquis De Lafayette
Those who invalidate reason, ought seriously to consider, 'whether they argue against reason, with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle, that they are laboring to dethrone;' but if they argue without reason, (which, in order to be consistent with themselves, they must do,) they are out of the reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.
Ethan Allen