Tag: General Douglas MacArthur

Famous People Quotes #10

Posted on February 16, 2011 by

“The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.” – George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

“Silence is argument carried out by other means.” – Ernesto”Che”Guevara (1928-1967)

“Well done is better than well said.” – Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

“The average person thinks he isn’t.” – Father Larry Lorenzoni

“Heav’n hath no rage like love to hatred turn’d, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.” – William Congreve (1670-1729)

“A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.” – Helen Rowland (1876-1950)

“Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century.” – Lewis Perelman

“Dogma is the sacrifice of wisdom to consistency.” – Lewis Perelman

“Sometimes it is not enough to do our best; we must do what is required.” – Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

“The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.” – Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

“There is a country in Europe where multiple-choice tests are illegal.” – Sigfried Hulzer

“Ask her to wait a moment – I am almost done.” – Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), while working, when informed that his wife is dying

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” – Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman of IBM, 1943

“I think it would be a good idea.” – Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), when asked what he thought of Western civilization

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

“I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat!” – Will Rogers (1879-1935)

“If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?” – Will Rogers (1879-1935)

“The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.” – Von Clausewitz (1780-1831)

“Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions – it only guarantees equality of opportunity.” – Irving Kristol

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” – Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.” – A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith‘s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” – H. M. Warner (1881-1958), founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” – Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” – Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.” – Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“A pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood.” – General George S. Patton (1885-1945)

“After I’m dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.” – Cato the Elder (234-149 BC, AKA Marcus Porcius Cato)

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” – Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

“Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.” – last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923)

“The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935)

“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” – Tom Clancy

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” – Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.” – Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), “The Prince”

“Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.” – Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

“The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep.” – Clinton aide George Stephanopolous speaking on Larry King Live

“We’re going to turn this team around 360 degrees.” – Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks

“Half this game is ninety percent mental.” – Yogi Berra

“There is only one nature – the division into science and engineering is a human imposition, not a natural one. Indeed, the division is a human failure; it reflects our limited capacity to comprehend the whole.” – Bill Wulf

“There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.” – Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964)

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” – Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

“Write drunk; edit sober.” – Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

“I criticize by creation – not by finding fault.” – Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

“Love is friendship set on fire.” – Jeremy Taylor

“God gave men both a penis and a brain, but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run both at the same time.” – Robin Williams, commenting on the Clinton/Lewinsky affair

“My occupation now, I suppose, is jail inmate.” – Unibomber Theodore Kaczynski, when asked in court what his current profession was

“Woman was God’s second mistake.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

“This isn’t right, this isn’t even wrong.” – Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), upon reading a young physicist’s paper

“For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.” – Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

“Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.” – Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” – Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

“Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies.” – Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed in response to a priest asking that he renounce Satan.

“Fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run.” – Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

“He would make a lovely corpse.” – Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” – Irvin S. Cobb

“I worship the quicksand he walks in.” – Art Buchwald

“Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” – Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” – Paul Valery (1871-1945)

“We are not retreating – we are advancing in another Direction.” – General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)

“If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?” – Seymour Cray (1925-1996), father of supercomputing

“#3 pencils and quadrille pads.” – Seymoure Cray (1925-1996) when asked what CAD tools he used to design the Cray I supercomputer; he also recommended using the back side of the pages so that the grid lines were not so dominant.

“Interesting – I use a Mac to help me design the next Cray.” – Seymoure Cray (1925-1996) when he was told that Apple Inc. had recently bought a Cray supercomputer to help them design the next Mac.

“Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis.” – Pierre Laplace (1749-1827), to Napoleon on why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God.

“I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don’t need.” – Francois-Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.” – Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“The truth is more important than the facts.” – Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)

“Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.” – Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)

“There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” – Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Famous Leadership Quotes

Posted on January 19, 2011 by

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – Harold R. McAlindon

Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

There go the people. I must follow them for I am their leader. – Alexandre Ledru-Rollin

What chance gathers she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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

The real leader has no need to lead– he is content to point the way. – Henry Miller

Go to the people. Learn from them. Live with them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. The best of leaders when the job is done, when the task is accomplished, the people will say we have done it ourselves. – Lao Tzu

A leader is a dealer in hope. – Napoleon Bonaparte

Rely on your own strength of body and soul. Take for your star self-reliance, faith, honesty and industry. Don’t take too much advice — keep at the helm and steer your own ship, and remember that the great art of commanding is to take a fair share of the work. Fire above the mark you intend to hit. Energy, invincible determination with the right motive, are the levers that move the world. – Noah Porter

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. – John Quincy Adams

He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander. – Aristotle

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. – Martin Luther King, Jr. (from Christian Leadership World)

Any one can hold the helm when the sea is calm. – Publilius Syrus

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

Where there is no vision, the people perish. – Proverb

Misfortunes, untoward events, lay open, disclose the skill of a general, while success conceals his weakness, his weak points. –Horace

In this world a man must either be an anvil or hammer. – Henry W. Longfellow

I light my candle from their torches. – Robert Burton

Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. – Woodrow Wilson

The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the governed. – Publius Syrus

A bold onset is half the battle. – Giuseppe Garibaldi

The power is detested, and miserable the life, of him who wishes to be feared rather than to be loved. – Cornelius Nepos

To be a great leader and so always master of the situation, one must of necessity have been a great thinker in action. An eagle was never yet hatched from a goose’s egg. – James Thomas

Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small. – Edmund Spenser

He who has learned how to obey will know how to command. – Solon

When I give a minister an order, I leave it to him to find the means to carry it out. – Napoleon Bonaparte

No man can stand on top because he is put there. – H. H. Vreeland

A ruler should be slow to punish and swift to reward. – Ovid

It is impossible to imagine anything which better becomes a ruler than mercy. – Seneca

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. – Abraham Lincoln

What you cannot enforce do not command. – Sophocles

No general can fight his battles alone. He must depend upon his lieutenants, and his success depends upon his ability to select the right man for the right place. – Philip Armour

To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult. – Friedrich Nietzsche

It is absurd that a man should rule others, who cannot rule himself. (Absurdum est ut alios regat, qui seipsum regere nescit.) – Latin Proverb

Let him who would be moved to convince others, be first moved to convince himself. – Thomas Carlyle

A good general not only sees the way to victory; he also knows when victory is impossible. – Polybius

Military Quotes

Posted on November 18, 2010 by

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