"I was poring over the principles of war, listed in the old Field Service Regulations, when the Sergeant-Major came upon me. He surveyed me with kindly amusement. "Don't bother your head about all them things, me lad", he said. "There's only one principle of war and that's this. Hit the other fellow as quick as you can and as hard as you can, where it hurts him most, when he ain't looking".
Field Marshall Slim.
This is a long tough road we have to travel. The men that can do things are going to be sought out just as surely as the sun rises in the morning. Fake reputations, habits of glib and clever speech and glittering surface performance are going to be discovered".
General Eisenhower.
"War is the province of danger, and therefore courage above all things is the first quality of a warrior. Courage is of two kinds: first, physical courage, or courage in presence of danger to the person; and next, moral courage, or courage before responsibility, whether it be before the judgement-seat of external authority, or of the inner power, the conscience".
Carl von Clausewitz, author of On War.
"Dulce Bellum Inexpertis - War is sweet to those who know nothing of it".
Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1511 AD (taken from The Lessons Of Terror by Caleb Carr ISBN 0-316-86079-4).
"I'm sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired and shot, nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded, who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell".
General William T Sherman, Michigan Military Academy 19th June 1979.
"Foolish, or even criminal, is the word to describe the behaviour of any (warrior) who does not prepare (himself) to master all the various types of weapon...that the enemy has or might have".
Lenin.
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me".
Martin Niemoller, German anti-Nazi pastor during World War II.
"To be a successful soldier, you must know history. What you must know is how man reacts. Weapons change but man who uses them changes not at all. To win battles, you do not beat weapons - you beat the soul of man, of the enemy man".
George Patton, 6th June 1944.
"It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it".
Douglas MacArthur.
"Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavour shrink to insignificance. God, how I love it".
George Patton, August 1944.
"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable".
Albert Einstein.
"In war, you win or lose, live or die - and the difference is an eyelash".
General Douglas MacArthur.
"The powers in charge keep us in a perpetual state of fear, keep us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervour with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real".
General Douglas MacArthur.
"One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously moulded by the press and other forms of propaganda".
General Douglas MacArthur.
"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country".
General George Patton, Jr.
"Pressure makes diamonds".
General George Patton, Jr.
"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity".
General George Patton Jr
"Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men".
General George Patton, Jr.
"A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood".
General George S. Patton, Jr.
"A leader is a man who can adapt principles to circumstances".
General George S. Patton, Jr.
"No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless
he be vigilant in its preservation".
General Douglas MacArthur
"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition".
H.M. Forgy, chaplain of USS New Orleans, Pearl Harbour, 7th December 1941.
"When you put on a uniform there are certain inhibitions that you accept".
General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
"In this war, which was total in every sense of the word, we have seen many great changes in military science. It seems to me that not the least of these was the development of psychological warfare as a specific and effective weapon".
General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
"The art of war does not require complicated manoeuvres; the simplest are the best, and common sense is fundamental. From which one might wonder how it is that generals make blunders; it is because they try to be clever.".
Napoleon Bonaparte, from "In The Words of Napoleon".
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