Soldier quotes
923 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside soldier — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Military cemeteries around the world are packed with brainwashed dead soldiers who were convinced God was on their side. America prays for God to destroy our enemies. Our enemies pray for God to destroy us. Somebody's gonna be disappointed! Somebody's wasting their time! Could it be.. everyone?"
"If I profess with loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except that little point which the world and the Devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point."
"War is then not a relationship between one man and another, but a relationship between one State and another, in which individuals are enemies only by accident, not as men, nor even as citizens, but as soldiers; not as members of the fatherland, but as its defenders. Finally, any State can only have other States, and not men, as enemies, inasmuch as it is impossible to fix a true relation between things of different natures."
"A smoke in times of rest is a great companion to the solitary soldier."
"I foresee that man will resign himself each day to new abominations, and soon that only bandits and soldiers will be left..."
"You've never lived until you've almost died. For those who have fought for it, life has a flavor the protected shall never know."
"It is a tragic mix-up when the United States spends 500,000 for every enemy soldier killed, and only 53 annually on the victims of poverty."
"I care not whether the soldiers are of Milesian, Teutonic, African or Angelo-Saxon descent. I despise the principle that make a difference between them in the hour of battle and of death."
"That's what's wrong with the country. There are too many 'good soldiers' accepting too many bad decisions."
"It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda tours."
"Our civilized world is nothing but a great masquerade. You encounter knights, parsons, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, priests, philosophers and a thousand more: but they are not what they appear - they are merely masks... Usually, as I say, there is nothing but industrialists, businessmen and speculators concealed behind all these masks."
"I'm a soldier who didn't know how nasty the battle was going to be, and now, I've got a purple heart and I'm back."
"The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue."
"To expect ... the same service from raw and undisciplined recruits, as from veteran soldiers, is to expect what never did and perhaps never will happen. Men, who are familiarized to danger, meet it without shrinking; whereas troops unused to service often apprehend danger where no danger is."
"A preacher must be both soldier and shepherd. He must nourish, defend, and teach; he must have teeth in his mouth, and be able to bite and fight."
"Why should the brave Spanish soldiers brag? The sunne never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shineth on one part or other we have conquered for our king."
"How long would authority ... exist, if not for the willingness of the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen."
"For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it."
"Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you."
"A coward dies a thousand times, a soldier dies but once."
