Military quotes
4.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"Currently, the United States has troops in dozens of countries and is actively fighting in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen (with the occasional drone strike in Pakistan). In addition, the United States is pledged to defend 28 countries in NATO. It is unwise to expand the monetary and military obligations of the United States given the burden of our $20 trillion debt."
"The question's whether or not there's an American interest in the Civil War [in Syria]. The question is whether or not a military strike on [Bashar] Assad will cause him to be encouraged to use more weapons or discouraged. It's easy enough to say - and the president [Barack Obama] says though this will teach him a lesson - but his military strike is intended not to target him individually, not to bring about regime change."
"America is the strongest empire ever, with the largest military. We spend ten times what the Russians do. And they have equal nuclear ability as we do, because they're precise."
"America is the only place where man is full-grown!"
"In the last analysis, one must be a military man in order to govern. It is only with boot and spurs that one can govern a horse."
"Soldiers! Forty centuries behold you!"
"To imagine that it is possible to perform great military deeds without fighting is just empty dreams."
"The allies we gain by victory will turn against us upon the bare whisper of our defeat."
"I cannot approve of your method of operation, you proceed like a bewildered idiot, taking not the least notice of my orders."
"One might as well try to charge through a wall."
"Military despotism represses generous sentiments, priestly tyranny stifles them."
"All I want to say, with the utmost emphasis at my command, is that the description of India as a military country is wrong."
"God forbid that India should ever become a military nation, which would be a menace to the peace of the world, and yet if things went on as they were doing, what hope was there for India and, therefore, for the world?"
"No police or military in the world can protect people who are cowards."
"Whilst power, superimposed, always needs the help of the police and the military, power generated from within should have little or no use of them."
"If the Commander-in-Chief will look beyond the defence forces, he will discover that the real India is not military but peace-loving."
"Being in the military just lets you know how helpless you are. You could train forever but you're still at the mercy of someone in the Pentagon, or somebody in the rear moving you around like a chess piece."
"What does nonalignment mean? It means we don't belong to any military bloc and that we reserve the right to be friends with any country, independently of the influence of any country. All this has remained unchanged after the signing of the Indo-Soviet treaty, and others can say or think what they like - our policy won't change because of the Soviet Union."
"What it targets is not something that's really looked at a lot in terms of the war. This is stuff that's off the beaten path in terms of what we think of every time you start a Civil War history or a Civil War presentation. It's usually about the military and the soldiers and all that stuff. And this is not. It's the backdrop to a place and a time and circumstances that didn't have anything to do with that."
"It is the act of a coward to wish for death."
