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
