Military Quotes

“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

“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.

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

“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

“Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.”
― Douglas MacArthur

“Lead me, follow me, or get the hell out of my way.”
― George S. Patton Jr., Patton Principles

“Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die”
― Lord Tennyson Alfred

“One more dance along the razor's edge finished. Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today.”
― Robert Jordan, Lord of Chaos

“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.

“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.”
― Simone Weil

“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

“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

“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

“Soldiers can sometimes make decisions that are smarter than the orders they've been given.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“...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.

“The most dangerous people in the world are not the tiny minority instigating evil acts, but those who do the acts for them. For example, when the British invaded India, many Indians accepted to work for the British to kill off Indians who resisted their occupation. So in other words, many Indians were hired to kill other Indians on behalf of the enemy for a paycheck. Today, we have mercenaries in Africa, corporate armies from the western world, and unemployed men throughout the Middle East killing their own people - and people of other nations - for a paycheck. To act without a conscience, but for a paycheck, makes anyone a dangerous animal. The devil would be powerless if he couldn't entice people to do his work. So as long as money continues to seduce the hungry, the hopeless, the broken, the greedy, and the needy, there will always be war between brothers.”
― Suzy Kassem

“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

“-You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Never run after a man or a bus, there's always another one in five minutes.”
― Cherry Adair, Kiss and Tell

“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

“The Japanese fought to win - it was a savage, brutal, inhumane, exhausting and dirty business. Our commanders knew that if we were to win and survive, we must be trained realistically for it whether we liked it or not. In the post-war years, the U.S. Marine Corps came in for a great deal of undeserved criticism in my opinion, from well-meaning persons who did not comprehend the magnitude of stress and horror that combat can be. The technology that developed the rifle barrel, the machine gun and high explosive shells has turned war into prolonged, subhuman slaughter. Men must be trained realistically if they are to survive it without breaking, mentally and physically.”
― E.B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“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

“His thoughts went to Kismaayo, and lately, particularly of Abdi. If there were a hero in this story, it was Abdi. Jon thought, this young man from Maine had left that war weary husk of a country called Somalia and had come to these United States of America to pursue the dream of happiness, security, and hope.”
― Mike Bennett, Las Vegas on Twelve Dollars a Day

“It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military thinker that huge casualties are the main thing. If they are on the other side then this is a valuable bonus.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.”
― Alexander the Great

“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: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War

“Kestrel's cruel calculation appalled her. This was part of what had made her resist the military: the fact that she could make decisions like this, that she did have a mind for strategy, that people could be so easily become pieces in a game she was determined to win...”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Curse

“God created every man to be free. The ability to choose whether to live free or enslaved, right or wrong, happy or in fear is something called freewill. Every man was born with freewill. Some people use it, and some people use any excuse not to. Nobody can turn you into a slave unless you allow them. Nobody can make you afraid of anything, unless you allow them. Nobody can tell you to do something wrong, unless you allow them. God never created you to be a slave, man did. God never created division or set up any borders between brothers, man did. God never told you hurt or kill another, man did. And in the end, when God asks you: "Who told you to kill one of my children?"

And you tell him, "My leader."

He will then ask you, "And are THEY your GOD?”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”
― George F. Kennan