Army Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

I should have liked to come across a large community of pines, which had never been invaded by the lumbering army.

Henry David Thoreau

Unlike the cosy little A-roads in England, their French counterparts tended to be both straight and lined with trees, in order, it was said, that the German army might more easily find their way to Paris, and march in the shade while they did so.

Guy Fraser-Sampson

We must support the army as though there were no White Paper, and fight the White Paper as though there were no war.

David Ben-Gurion

O venerable father Bernard, I lay my claim before you, for, highly honored by God, you bring fear to the immoral foolishness of this world and, in your intense zeal and burning love for the Son of God, gather men [cf. Luke 5.10] into Christ's army to fight under the banner of the cross against pagan savagery. I beseech you in the name of the Living God to give heed to my queries.

Hildegard of Bingen

It will pay Government to give those people who are suffering innocence, justice and liberty. if not I will be compelled to show some colonial stratagem which will open the eyes of not only the Victoria Police and inhabitants but also the whole British army and no doubt they will acknowledge their hounds were barking at the wrong stump.

From the crimson sods of war springs the white flower of freedom, and songs of deliverance mingle with the crash and roar of war. The shadow of the American army becomes a covert for the slave, and beneath the American Eagle he grasps the key of knowledge and is lifted to a higher destiny.

To serve in the scientific army, to have shown some initiative, and to be rewarded by the consciousness that in the eyes of his comrades he bears the accredited accolade of successful endeavor, is enough to satisfy the legitimate ambition of every earnest student of nature.

Above all, I would not expect a wise race, at great expense, to set loose an army of self-replicating robots.

Bernard M. Oliver

It was not clear how many of them were killed by the (Lankan) army or whether the LTTE had moved the people to the war zones which led to the death of some of them. We may not have the full expertise to identify the exact factors that led to those casualties. So international participation is welcome for determining such causes. But the right to make the final judgment who was responsible for the deaths and on the nature of punishment should rest with the judicial system of Sri Lanka. The judicial system in Sri Lanka was in shambles earlier, but now it is returning to normal. The sovereignty of each country must be respected in such issues.

Ranil Wickremesinghe

One just principle from the depths of a cave is more powerful than an army.

The navy must be an adjunct to the army, yet the officers and men of the navy should always have full credit for the service they perform.

David Dixon Porter

Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki told Congress in February that the occupation could require "several hundred thousand troops." But because Rumsfeld and Bush did not want to hear disagreement with their view that Iraq could be invaded at a much lower cost, Shinseki was hushed and then forced out.

The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed.

Social stability is ensured, not by the cessation of the demand for change – for the needy and the restless will never cease to cry for it – but by the fact that change in its progress must at last hurt some class of men who are strong enough to arrest it. The army of so-called reform, in every stage of its advance, necessarily converts a detachment of its force into opponents. The more rapid the advance the more formidable will the desertion become, till at last a point will be reached where the balance between the forces of conservation and destruction will be redressed, and the political equilibrium be restored.

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar of money shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school. Resolve that neither the state nor nation, or both combined, shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford every child growing up in the land the opportunity of a good common school education, unmixed with sectarian, Pagan, or Atheistical tenets. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and the state forever separate. With these safeguards, I believe the battles which created the Army of the Tennessee will not have been fought in vain.

Ulysses S. Grant

Because Israel believes, when it comes right down to it America is the only big country that cares whether they live or die. That's why I can say, give up the West Bank, because the Israelis knew that if the Iraqi or the Iranian army came across the Jordan river, I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die, and I would.

He'll sit right here and he'll say do this, do that! And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won't be a bit like the Army.

Of his successor eisenhower

Harry S. Truman

The army slew a thousand and showed little pity The king ordered fealty from the conquered city The prince charmed its people with words wise and witty And the queen sat on a couch, looking very pretty

You have ransacked every corner of Lower Saxony; but forty thousand German boors never can conquer ten times the number of British freemen. You may ravage—you cannot conquer; it is impossible: you cannot conquer the Americans. You talk, my Lords, of your friends among them to annihilate the Congress, and of your powerful forces to disperse their army: I might as well talk of driving them before me with this crutch!... If you conquer them, what then? You cannot make them respect you; you cannot make them wear your cloth: you will plant an invincible hatred in their breasts against you. Coming from the stock they do, they can never respect you...

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

Men can usefully undertake and properly accomplish a common task only when one of them continually directs the activities of all towards the same end. This is self-evident when actions which must follow a rhythm are involved. It would be useless for a gang of men laying rails or a rowing-crew to exert themselves if a foreman or coxswain did not control their movements. Every non-directed collective action turns rapidly into confusion and disorder. All who have fought in a battle know how necessary it is that someone should be in command; and what is true of the army is true of the dockyard, the factory, the newspaper office, the whole country. Whenever men are required to act together, there must be a chief.

The Spartans say that any army may win while it still has legs under it; the real test comes when all strength is fled and the men must produce victory on will alone.

Steven Pressfield

There is no end to observations on the difference between the measures likely to be pursued by a minister backed by a standing army, and those of a court awed by the fear of an armed people.

Sharpe had no thought of deserting now, for now he was about to fight. If there was any one good reason to join the army, it was to fight. Not to hurry up and do nothing, but to fight the King's enemies, and this enemy had been shocked by the awful violence of the close-range volley and now they stared in horror as the redcoats screamed and ran toward them.

Bernard Cornwell

Without the elected president and if there is a freak result, within two or three years, the army would have to come in and stop it

Hank had left me his doomed army, and he'd left Marcie his inheritance. Unfair didn't begin to cover it.

Becca Fitzpatrick