Military quotes and sayings

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week. A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood. No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making other bastards die for their country.

If a man does his best, what else is there?

Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.

Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

Do your damnedest in an ostentatious manner all the time.

Pressure makes diamonds.

May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't.

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men.

I am a soldier, I fight where I am told, and I win where I fight.

If you can't get them to salute when they should salute and wear the clothes you tell them to wear, how are you going to get them to die for their country?

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.

Nothing is so exhilarating in life as to be shot at with no result.

The Americans will always do the right thing... After they've exhausted all the alternatives.

Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.

Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it.... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.

I don't know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war. Pentagon official, on why US military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War

In time of war the first casualty is truth.

Only the winners decide what were war crimes.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.

The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood.

There never was a good war, or a bad peace.

War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.

War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military.

War will cease when men refuse to fight.

When the rich make war it's the poor that die.

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.

War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.

Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, not things, that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale. Military and economic power is necessarily wielded by people.

In war there is no substitute for victory.

We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction.

A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.

That's what an army is - a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.

Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely.

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

For them to perceive the advantage of defeating the enemy, they must also have their rewards.

All warfare is based on deception.

For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.