Bernard Cornwell - Soldiers Quotes

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He was confused. He was in love with a woman he did not know, except he knew her loyalty was to the enemy. Yet Denmark did not feel like an enemy, though it was. And he was a Soldier still, and Soldiers, he reckoned, fought for those who could not fight for themselves, and that meant he should be fighting for Astrid's folk and not his own. But that was too great a wrench to contemplate.

Bernard Cornwell
He had been a tough, cheerful youngster, the sort who collected birds' eggs, scrapped with other boys and climbed the church tower on a dare, and now he was a tough cheerful young man who thought that being an officer in Lawford's regiment was just about the finest thing life could afford. He liked soldiering and he liked soldiers.

Bernard Cornwell
We celebrate kings, we honor great men, we admire aristocrats, we applaud actors, we shower gold on portrait painters and we even, sometimes, reward soldiers, but we always despise merchants.

Bernard Cornwell
Sir Thomas was a sentimental man. He loved Soldiers. He had once thought all men who wore the red coat were rogues and thieves, the scourings of the gutters, and since he had joined the army he had discovered he was right, but he had also learned to love them. He loved their patience, their ferocity, their endurance, and their bravery.

Bernard Cornwell
Put a British Soldier in a wilderness and he would soon discover a taproom.

Bernard Cornwell
"The Major's a grand big fellow, so he is."
"So what are we? The damned?"
"We're that, sure enough, but we're also Riflemen, sir. You and me, we're the best God-damned Soldiers in the world."

Bernard Cornwell
You can keep your sword, for you fought proper. Like a proper soldier. Take your blade to paradise, and tell them you were killed by another proper soldier.

Bernard Cornwell
You're a light company, and that means you can go where other Soldier's can't. It makes you an elite. You know what that means? It means you're the best men in the bloody army, and right now the army needs its best men. It needs you.

Bernard Cornwell
If he had learned one thing as a Soldier it was that any decision, even a bad one, was better than none.

Bernard Cornwell
The British army fought against other infantry arrayed in two ranks and every man could use his musket, and if cavalry threatened they marched and wheeled into a square of four ranks, and still every man could use his musket, but the soldiers at the heart of the two French columns could never fire without hitting the men in front.

Bernard Cornwell
The Tippoo himself led the defenders north of the breach. The Tippoo had cursed Gudin for blowing the mines too early and thus wasting its terrible destructive power, but now he tried to revive the defense by his personal example. He stood in the front rank of his soldiers while behind him a succession of aides loaded jewel-encrusted hunting rifles. One by one the rifles were given to the Tippoo who aimed and fired, aimed and fired, and redcoat after redcoat was struck down.

Bernard Cornwell
A soldier's death, he thought, was a happy one, because a man, even in the throes of awful pain, would die in the best company of the world.

Bernard Cornwell
And the good news is that you've got a brain. You do! Honest! I saw it with my own eyes, thus disproving the navy's stubborn contention that soldiers have nothing whatsoever inside their skulls. I shall write a paper for the Review. I'll be famous! Brain discovered in a soldier.

Bernard Cornwell
"Your nephew plays."
"My nephew and his friends practice."
"He would do better to look to his soul."
"He has no soul, he's a soldier."

Bernard Cornwell
"They're drunk sods, sir, but they're the best Soldiers in the world. The very best." And he meant it. They were the elite, the damned, the Rifles. They were Soldiers in green. They were Sharpe's Rifles.

Bernard Cornwell
We have honour, Sharpe. That is our private strength, our honour. We're Soldiers, you and I. We cannot expect riches, or dignity, or continual victory. We will die, probably, in battle, or in a fever ward, and no one will remember us, so all that is left is honour.

Bernard Cornwell