#Military Quotes

“Go, bid the soldiers shoot.”

“Give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils.”

“We proceeded systematically, village by village and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation.”

“Make sure that the beer - four pints a week - goes to the troops under fire before any of the parties in the rear get a drop.”

“Indomitable in retreat, invincible in advance; insufferable in victory.”

“Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.”

“Victory is the beautiful, bright-colored flower. Transport is the stem without which it could never have blossomed.”

“We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general.”

“This war proceeds along its terrible path by the slaughter of infantry...I say to myself every day. What is going on while we sit here, while we go away to dinner or home to bed? Nearly, 1000 - Englishmen, Britishers, and the other is America...Everything else is swept away.”

“The Golcondas were considered incomparably the best team in Southern India ... [But] we defeated [them] by 9 goals to 3. On succeeding days we made short work of all other opponents, and established the record, never since broken, of winning a first-class tournament within fifty days of landing in India.”

“The whole of northern Norway was covered with snow to depths which none of our soldiers had ever seen, felt, or imagined. There were neither snow-shoes nor skis - still less skiers. We must do our best. Thus began this ramshackle campaign.”

“We hoped to land a wild cat that would tear out the bowels of the Boche. Instead we have stranded a vast whale with its tail flopping about in the water.”

“...every offensive lost its force as it proceeded. It was like throwing a bucket of water over the floor. It first rushed forward, then soaked forward, and finally stopped altogether until another bucket could be brought.”

“In battles two things are usually required of the Commander-in-Chief: to make a good plan for his army and, secondly, to keep a strong reserve.”

“The tank was originally invented to clear a way for the infantry in the teeth of machine-gun fire. Now it is the infantry who will have to clear a way for the tanks.”

“... I think it would be so much better for me to learn something which would be useful to me in the army, as well as affording me exercise and amusement.”

“Put together a seaman, soldier and airman and what do you get? The sum of all fears.”

“I am not one of those who believe that a great standing army is the means of maintaining peace, because if you build up a great profession those who form parts of it want to exercise their profession.”

“I believe that soldiers will bear me out in saying that both come in time of battle. I take it that the moral courage comes in going into the battle, and the physical courage in staying in.”

“There is required for the composition of a great commander not only massive common sense and reasoning power, not only imagination, but also an element of legerdemain, an original and sinister touch, which leaves the enemy puzzled as well as beaten.”

“It has not fallen to your lot to command great armies. You had to create them, organize them and inspire them.”

“...We are intensely proud of their noble record and are glad to have had the whole world see how irresistible they are in their might when a cause which America holds dear is at stake. The whole nation has reason to be proud of them.”

“Building slow destroyers ! One might as well breed slow race horses.”

“Luckily ... there were Zulus and Afghans, also the Dervishes in the Soudan. Some of these might, if they were well-disposed, 'put up a show' some day.”

“We must be very careful not to assign this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations”

“Of all the branches of men in the forces there is none which shows more devotion and faces grimmer perils than the submariners.”

“You may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman, or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together- what do you get? The sum of their fears.”

“The reservist is twice the citizen.”

“I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.”

“The moon gives you light, and the bugles and the drums give you music, and my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, my heart gives you love.”

“One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier.”

“In this country we find it pays to shoot an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.”

“In this country [England] it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others. The reference is to Admiral John Byng, who was executed in 1757 for failing to prevent the French from taking Minorca.”

“Nothing could be smarter, more splendid, more brilliant, better drawn up than two armies. Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, cannons, formed a harmony such as never been heard in hell.”

“But in this country it is necessary, now and then, to put one admiral to death in order to inspire the others to fight.”

“We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education.”

“We will send ships and Marines as soon as possible for the protection of American life and property.”

“There is a homely old adage which runs: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.”

“Unjust war is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that does not make ready to hold its own in time of need against all who would harm it! And woe thrice over to the nation in which the average man loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need should arise!”

“Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.”

“We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.”

“Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence.”

“There are some who've forgotten why we have a military. It's not to promote war, it's to be prepared for peace.”

“We are forever indebted to those who have given their lives that we might be free.”

“Spending on the military doesn't increase the deficit.”

“We remember those who were called upon to give all a person can give, and we remember those who were prepared to make that sacrifice if it were demanded of them in the line of duty, though it never was. Most of all, we remember the devotion and gallantry with which all of them ennobled their nation as they became champions of a noble cause.”

“Young Americans must never again be sent to fight and die unless we are prepared to let them win.”

“There are some who've forgotten why we have a military. It's not to promote war. It's to be prepared for peace. There's a sign over the entrance to the Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington state, and that sign says it all: 'Peace is our profession'.”

“Democracy and dependence on the military and police are incompatible.”

“We're in greater danger today than we were the day after Pearl Harbor. Our military is absolutely incapable of defending this country.”