"'Whoever said the pen is mightier then the sword
obviously never encountered automatic weapons.'"
— Douglas MacArthur

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
— Dwight D. Eisenhower

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
— George Orwell

"We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us."
— Winston S. Churchill

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."
— Martin Luther King Jr.

"From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day."
— William Shakespeare (Henry V)

"Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter."
— Winston S. Churchill

"The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking."
— Terry Pratchett (Eric)

"I don't want unnecessary violence, sergeant," said Blouse.
"Right you are, sir!" said the sergeant. "Carborundum! First man comes through that door runnin', I want him nailed to the wall!" He caught the lieutenant's eye, and added: "But not too hard!"
— Terry Pratchett (Monstrous Regiment)

"Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die"
— Alfred Lord Tennyson

"We're like America's little pit bull. They beat it, starve it, mistreat it, and once in a while they let it out to attack somebody."
— Evan Wright (Generation Kill)

"There were many, many times thereafter that Don regretted having enlisted - but so has every man who ever volunteered for military service."
— Robert A. Heinlein (Between Planets)

"She had been proud of his decision to serve his country, her heart bursting with love and admiration the first time she saw him outfitted in his dress blues. "
— Nicholas Sparks (The Lucky One)

"Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back."
— Heraclitus

"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"
— General George S. Patton Jr.

""...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."
"
— General George S. Patton Jr.

"Military people never seem to apologize for killing each other yet novelists feel ashamed for writing some nice inert paper book that is not certain to be read by anybody."
— Leonora Carrington (The Hearing Trumpet)

"Our knowledge of circumstances has increased, but our uncertainty, instead of having diminished, has only increased. The reason of this is, that we do not gain all our experience at once, but by degrees; so our determinations continue to be assailed incessantly by fresh experience; and the mind, if we may use the expression, must always be under arms."
— Carl Von Clausewitz

"The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership."
— Colin Powell

"Civilians are like beans; you buy 'em as needed for any job which merely requires skill and savvy.
But you can't buy fighting spirit."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"Question the answers, I repeated every class. Reevaluate your conclusions when the evidence changes."
— Craig M. Mullaney (The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education)

"I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not Honor more."
— Richard Lovelace

"He who whets his steel, whets his courage"
— Steven Pressfield (Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae)

""War means fighting, and fighting means killing.""
— Nathan Bedford Forrest

""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.

"Mess with the best;
Die like the rest"
— U.S. Special Forces

"The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars."
— William Westmoreland

"I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain."
— John Adams

"'If we can use an H-bomb--and as you said it's no checker game; it's real, it's war and nobody is fooling around--isn't it sort of ridiculous to go crawling around in the weeds, throwing knives and maybe getting yourself killed . . . and even losing the war . . . when you've got a real weapon you can use to win? What's the point in a whole lot of men risking their lives with obsolete weapons when one professor type can do so much more just by pushing a button?'
Zim didn't answer at once, which wasn't like him at all. Then he said softly, 'Are you happy in the Infantry, Hendrick? You can resign, you know.'
Hendrick muttered something; Zim said, 'Speak up!'
'I'm not itching to resign, sir. I'm going to sweat out my term.'
'I see. Well, the question you asked is one that a sergeant isn't really qualified to answer . . . and one that you shouldn't ask me. You're supposed to know the answer before you join up. Or you should. Did your school have a course in History and Moral Philosophy?'
'What? Sure--yes, sir.'
'Then you've heard the answer. But I'll give you my own--unofficial--views on it. If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cuts its head off?'
'Why . . . no, sir!'
'Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy with an H-Bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him . . . but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing . . . but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how--or why--he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people--"older and wiser heads," as they say--supply the control. Which is as it should be. That's the best answer I can give you. If it doesn't satisfy you, I'll get you a chit to go talk to the regimental commander. If he can't convince you--then go home and be a civilian! Because in that case you will certainly never make a soldier.'"
— Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers)

"My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent. I attack."
— Ferdinand Foch

"If you're leaving scorch marks, you need a bigger gun"
— rule 34

"His name was Rambo, and he was just some nothing kid for all anybody knew, standing by the pump of a gas station at the outskirts of Madison, Kentucky."
— David Morrell (First Blood)

"I wanted that future officer to weigh decisions with a supple mind and to be comfortable with nuance and uncertainty. "
— Craig M. Mullaney (The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education)

"The participation if women in some armies in the world is in reality only symbolic. The talk about the role of Zionist women in fighting with the combat units of the enemy in the war of 5 June 1967 was intended more as propaganda than anything real or substantial. It was calculated to intensify and compound the adverse psychological effects of the war by exploiting the backward outlook of large sections of Arab society and their role in the community. The intention was to achieve adverse psychological effects by saying to Arabs that they were defeated, in 1967, by women."
— Saddam Hussein (The Revolution and Woman in Iraq)

"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"
— Albert Einstein

"Obwohl diese afrikanischen Militärbanden oft nicht größer oder mächtiger sind als die organisierten kriminellen Banden in Asien oder Osteuropa, wird über ihre Aktivitäten in den Medien - sogar in den westlichen Medien - unter der Rubrik Politik (Geschehen aus aller Welt) respektvoll berichtet, statt unter der Rubrik Verbrechen."
— J.M. Coetzee (Tagebuch eines schlimmen Jahres)

"Diese Haltung zur Opferung von Menschenleben ist seltsam. Militärbefehlshaber überlegen nicht zweimal, wenn sie Soldaten in die Schlacht schicken und dabei genau wissen, dass viele von ihnen sterben werden. [...] Andererseits verbietet es der Offiziersethos, einzelne Soldaten auszuwählen und ihnen zu befehlen, ihr Leben zu opfern [...]. Und doch - und das ist noch paradoxer - werden Soldaten, die eine solche Tat aus eigener Initiative vollbringen, als Helden betrachtet."
— J.M. Coetzee (Tagebuch eines schlimmen Jahres)

"War...strengthened the position of the armament industries...to a point...that these industries dominated the economies and therefore the governments of all the participating nations...war barbarised and lowered the already very low level of accepted conduct."
— Doris Lessing (Shikasta: Canopus in Argos Archvies re Colonised Planet 5-Personal Psychological Historical Document Relating to Visit by Johor (George Sherban) Emissary Grade 9 87th of the Period of the Last Days)

"They kill hundreds of people, those pilots. I would have loved to have flown the plane that dropped the bomb on Japan. A couple of dudes killed hundreds of thousands. That f****** rules! Yeah!"
— Evan Wright (Generation Kill)

""...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.

"They kill hundreds of people, those pilots. I would have loved to have flown the plane that dropped the bomb on Japan. A couple of dudes killed hundreds of thousands. That fucking rules! Yeah!"
— Evan Wright (Generation Kill)