Military Leader Quotes

Joan of Arc

Erwin Rommel

Hermann Göring

Attila

Douglas MacArthur

Horatio Nelson

Chiang Kai-shek

My men have sometimes failed to take a position, but to defend one, never!

Stonewall Jackson

And the fellow died as well as he lived, but it is part of a sailor's life to die well. He had no talk, but he inspired all about him with ardor; he always saw the best thing to be done; he knew the best way to do it; and he had no more dodge in him than the mainmast.

Of Captain James Lawrence, who died in the action between U.S.S. Chesapeake and H.M.S. Shannon

Stephen Decatur

Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.

Charles James Napier

War makes extremely heavy demands on the soldier's strength and nerves. For this reason, make heavy demands on your men in peacetime exercises.

When you march into France, let the last man on the right brush the channel with his sleeve.

Alfred von Schlieffen

Courage! Do not fall back; in a little the place will be yours. Watch! When the wind blows my banner against the bulwark, you shall take it.

As a soldier who has spent a quarter of his life in the study of the science of arms, let me tell you I went into the British Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I believe now that if you prepare thoroughly and efficiently for war, you get war.

Frederick B. Maurice

In spite of intense efforts, the moment has drawn near when this front, already so heavily strained, will break. I consider it my duty to bring these conclusions to your notice... my Fuhrer.

Günther von Kluge

Service in this business is tough and often dangerous. It extracts a price for participants, and that price can be high. It is tempting to protect yourself from the personal and professional cost of loss by limiting how much you commit, how much you believe and trust in people, and how deeply you care… If I had it to do over again, I'd do some things in my career differently, but not many. I believed in people and I still believe in them. I trusted and I still trust. I cared and I still care. I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Stanley A. McChrystal

Boarman's personal application sent along with his father's earlier letter:

Sir, I am happy to find my father has applied to you, as a friend, to procure me a berth as a midshipman in the navy. Should I succeed in my wishes, at your request, my greatest ambition shall at all times be to merit the confidence reposed in me and to prove thereby, Sir, my gratitude to you. Though sixteen years old, I already begin to think myself a man! And why not? Alexander, it is said, was a little man, yet fame gives him the credit and honor of possessing a great soul! May not, Sir, great feats be performed by a little David as well as by a Goliath? Methinks I already hear the roaring of the cannons, and my soul, impatient of delay, impetuously hurries me on to the scene of action! — there — there to prove the innate courage that characterized on the rolls of fame the immortal and intrepid Major Boarman on the first occupying this happy land. With many thanks for your kind offer, I am, dear Sir, your very obedient and greatly obliged humble servant,
Charles Boarman.

Charles Boarman

I fear we have only awakened a sleeping giant, and his reaction will be terrible.

Isoroku Yamamoto

Brethren: I advise you to avoid attacking any of your brothers even if he harms you or surpasses the limits of ingratitude. The strength of any one amongst you is the strength of the other.

Abd al-Karim Qasim

I have read your religious works and I have found nothing inappropriate.

The idea of freedom can never be disassociated from real Prussia. The real Prussian spirit means a synthesis between restraint and freedom, between voluntary subordination and conscientious leadership, between pride in oneself and consideration for others, between rigor and compassion. Unless a balance is kept between these qualities, the Prussian spirit is in danger of degenerating into soulless routine and narrow-minded dogmatism.

Henning von Tresckow

Without establishing national laws, how can you suppress the rebellion?

Technology can have no legitimacy unless it inflicts no harm.

Hyman G. Rickover

From the beginning I urged upon the Government, in the strongest terms, the enlistment of negro troops, the former slaves of the rebels, not only as adding to the number and efficiency of our own forces, but chiefly on account of its depriving the enemy of just so much labor in their fields.

I leave it to your discretion to strike or not, but the American colors must not be pulled down over my head today.

Oliver Hazard Perry

To me the greatest thing that has happened on this earth of ours is the rise of the human race to the vision of God. That story of the human rise to what I call the vision of God is the story which is told in the Bible.

NATO plays a significant role in ensuring international security and stability. This fact is proved by the presence of peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Cooperation with the Alliance is a priority for Armenia. The IPAP initial 2-year stage is completed. The outcomes will be discussed at the 26+1 NATO session in April. Strategic reconsideration of the security system will start this year.

Mikael Harutyunyan

I had not forgotten the way to reconquer it [Urbino].

The bomb will not start a chain-reaction in the water converting it all to gas and letting all the ships on all the oceans drop down to the bottom. It will not blow out the bottom of the sea and let all the water run down the hole. It will not destroy gravity. I am not an atomic playboy, as one of my critics labeled me, exploding these bombs to satisfy my personal whim.

William H. P. Blandy

If they turn on their radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs [surface-to- air missiles]. They know we own their country. We own their airspace…We dictate the way they live and talk. And that's what's great about America right now. It's a good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need.

William R. Looney III

Mr. Chief of Staff [Ryunosuke Kusaka], what do you think? I feel that I've undertaken a heavy responsibility. If I had only been more firm and refused. Now we've left home waters and I'm beginning to wonder if the operation will work.

Better an army of stags led by a lion, than an army of lions led by a stag.

As quoted by Plutarch