"We have tried to substitute mass for purpose. We have tried to regain military potency of defense by making it gigantic, unwieldy, complex. It never works."
Read quote
3 likes
Military quotes
Military
4.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Military
Browse quotes that often appear alongside military — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Military quotes (page 38 of 213)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"There's a really classic cliche every time you switch the TV on - you see cops arguing. I have spent a day a week for many years in the presence of police and I have never seen them argue. It's a military hierarchy. They do what they're told. There's no bickering."
Read quote
3 likes
"If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it."
Read quote
3 likes
"In the literary as well as military world, most powerful abilities will often be found concealed under a rustic garb."
Read quote
3 likes
"Politics is not like an ocean voyage or a military campaign... something which leaves off as soon as reached. It is not a public chore to be gotten over with. It is a way of life."
Read quote
3 likes
"They are wrong who think that politics is like an ocean voyage or a military campaign, something to be done with some particular end in view, something which leaves off as soon as that end is reached. It is not a public chore, to be got over with. It is a way of life. It is the life of a domesticated political and social creature who is born with a love for public life, with a desire for honor, with a feeling for his fellows; and it lasts as long as need be."
Read quote
3 likes
"I agree with Pres. Barack Obama, Iraqis need a political solution. No war in Iraq!"
Read quote
3 likes
"Secretary of state Colin Powell himself eloquently pointed out the many ways to get at the root of this problem... economic, diplomatic, legal and political, as well as military. A rush to launch precipitous military counterattacks runs too great a risk that more innocent men, women and children will be killed. I could not vote for a resolution that I believe will lead to such an outcome."
Read quote
3 likes
"I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States."
Read quote
3 likes
"I must follow them. I am their leader."
Read quote
3 likes
"It is for us and our time...to say the right makes might."
Read quote
3 likes
"We shall meanly lose or nobly save the last hope of earth."
Read quote
3 likes
"Military necessity does not admit of cruelty - that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, . . . nor of torture to extort confessions."
Read quote
3 likes
"It appears that legal positions that you have supported have been used by the administration, the military, and the CIA to justify torture and Geneva Convention violations by military and civilian personnel."
Read quote
3 likes
"We cannot simply speak out against an escalation of troops in Iraq, we must act to prevent it... There can be no doubt that the Constitution gives Congress the authority to decide whether to fund military action, and Congress can demand a justification from the president for such action before it appropriates the funds to carry it out."
Read quote
3 likes
"I'm not a military man. I wish I were, then maybe I could give some advice."
Read quote
3 likes
"Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination. Learning to suspend your imagination and live completely in the very second of the present with no before and no after is the greatest gift a soldier can acquire."
Read quote
3 likes
"There is a great inertia about all military operations of any size. But once this inertia has been overcome and underway they are almost as hard to arrest as to initiate."
Read quote
3 likes
"The Latino military fare badly when they stumble into war with the gringos. But in the torture, murder, and massacre of their own people, they have always performed with brilliance and elan."
Read quote
3 likes
"Men love their ideas more than their lives. And the more preposterous the idea, the more eager they are to die for it. And to kill for it."
Read quote
3 likes