American Caesar Quotes

“I will not take by sacrifice what I can achieve by strategy.”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964

“John Kennedy once remarked that “victory has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan.”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964

“A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys.”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964

“If Peking wasn’t stopped in the peninsular war, he argued, China would be recognized as “the military colossus of the East.” U.S. prestige would plummet, and the world’s new nations would gravitate toward neutralism.”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964

“The heart of the other quotation, from Lincoln, was: “If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, these shops might as well be closed to any other business. I do the very best I know how, and I mean to keep doing so to the end.”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964

“was an eighth cousin of Churchill, and a sixth cousin, once removed, of FDR—and three of World War II’s great leaders were thus linked by American intermarriages.”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964

“there are times when a truly remarkable soldier must resort to unorthodox behavior, disobeying his superiors to gain the greater glory.”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964

“patriotism, vitiated by the growing global diaspora, has become parochial, a tarnished, disappearing virtue.”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964

“He was convinced that his inexhaustible haters were at work, thwarting him.”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964

“No one would take seriously the equally illogical plan of disbanding our fire department, or disbanding our police department to stop crime”—but the speech attracted little attention.”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964

“Later, millions of Americans would believe that he had provoked Red China into military intervention by ignoring White House orders to halt at the 38th Parallel. That is not at all what happened.”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964

“Chance,” said Louis Pasteur, “favors the prepared man.” It disfavors the unprepared, who in this instance were the defenders of the Philippines”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964

“Some 4,887 miles to the east of him, north of the”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964

“councils of war breed timidity and defeatism.”
― William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964