Military Quotes

The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave…  –Patrick Henry

Victory belongs to the most persevering. –Napoleon Bonaparte

From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots. –Thomas Jefferson

We have met the enemy and they are ours! –Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, 1813

Veni, Vedi, Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) –Julius Caesar

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. –John Stewart Mill

War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over. –William Tecumseh Sherman

Freedom isn’t free. –Anonymous

Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. –Winston Churchill

If it moves, salute it; if it doesn’t move, pick it up; and if you can’t pick it up, paint it. –Anonymous (1940’s saying)

The ‘eathen in ‘is blindness must end where ‘e began. But the backbone of the Army is the non-commissioned man! –Rudyard Kipling

Soldiers are men…most apt for all manner of services and best able to support and endure the infinite toils and continual hazards of war. –Henry Knyvett

A soldier is he whose blood makes the glory of the general. –Adapted from Henry G. Bohn

Army: A body of men assembled to rectify the mistakes of the diplomats. –Josephus Daniels

Two armies are two bodies which meet and try to frighten each other. –Napoleon I

Some people live an entire lifetime and wonder if they have ever made a difference in the world, but the Marines don’t have that problem. –Ronald Reagan

A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. –John F. Kennedy

A ship without Marines is like a garment without buttons. –Admiral David D. Porter, USN

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. –George Patton

Diplomats are just as essential in starting a war as soldiers are in finishing it. –Will Rogers

Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war. –Thucydides

Soldiers usually win the battles and generals get the credit for them. –Napoleon Bonaparte

We make war that we may live in peace. –Aristotle

In war there is no substitute for victory. –General Douglas MacArthur

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war. –Ernest Miller Hemmingway

The number of medals on an officer’s breast varies in inverse proportion to the square of the distance of his duties from the front line. –Charles Edward Montague

Always forgive your enemies–nothing annoys them so much. –Oscar Wilde

Being in the army is like being in the Boy Scouts, except that the Boy Scouts have adult supervision.–Blake Clark

Discipline is simply the art of making the soldiers fear their officers more than the enemy.–Helvetius

Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier. –Samuel Johnson

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

Now I recall the Recon Marines ragged, filthy cammie shirted young men in green paint who move silent like the fog with deadly purpose in their eyes. Swift, Silent, Deadly. I smile. –GYSGT Correll, USMC, Retired Recon Marine

Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I am attacking.–Ferdinand Foch at the Battle of the Marne