Military quotes
4.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside military — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"It has become clear that America's civilian institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and underfunded for far too long - relative to what we spend on the military, and more important, relative to the responsibilities and challenges our nation has around the world."
"The enemy's spies who have come to spy on us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become double agents and available for our service. It is through the information brought by the double agent that we are able to acquire and employ local and inward spies. It is owing to his information, again, that we can cause the doomed spy to carry false tidings to the enemy."
"If asked how to cope with a great host of the enemy in orderly array and on the point of marching to the attack, I should say: "Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds dear; then he will be amenable to your will." Rapidity is the essence of war: take advantage of the enemy's unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots."
"The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose."
"I was provided with additional input that was radically different from the truth. I assisted in furthering that version."
"Human life is the only thing that takes care of itself."
"In the eyes of empire builders men are not men but instruments."
"No phase of life, whether public or private, can be free from duty."
"Blood alone moves the wheels of history."
"Had we taken ten sails, and let the eleventh to escape, being able to get at her, I could never have called it well done."
"With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right."
"All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years."
"We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk."
"I made one great mistake in my life-when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made but there was some justification-the danger that the Germans would make them."
"The governments and the hard-headed military establishment and the general conservative part of America have never taken much interest in democracy, anyway."
"They taught me that no man could be their leader except he ate the ranks' food, wore their clothes, lived level with them, and yet appeared better in himself."
"All mathematics is divided into three parts: cryptography (paid for by CIA, KGB and the like), hydrodynamics (supported by manufacturers of atomic submarines) and celestial mechanics (financed by military and other institutions dealing with missiles, such as NASA)."
"The best is the enemy of the good."
"I think it would be a great challenge to work on a military game which featured a female lead character. Since female soldiers are now being allowed on the frontlines, we're actually in danger of reality overtaking games!"
"War would end if the dead could return."
