Military Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

A new space race has begun, and most Americans are not even aware of it. This race is not [about] political prestige or military power. This new race involves the whole human species in a contest against time.

Like so many empires before it, the Soviet Union eventually imploded and fragmented, falling victim not so much to a direct military defeat as to disintegration accelerated by economic and social strains.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

As far as I know, the question of whether and how it could be strategically or morally justified was never the subject of open debate in Germany after 1945, no doubt mainly because a nation which had murdered and worked to death millions of people in its camps could hardly call on the victorious powers to explain the military and political logic that dictated the destruction of the German cities.

Cinematography, a military art. Prepare a film like a battle.

Who is it that said that 'you have not converted a man because you have silenced him?' This is true of the use of the military on people.

After one month with a saxophone shoved in my mouth, my military combatant's enthusiasm disappeared completely. Instead of flying choppers behind enemy lines, I started to fantasise about living in New York, London or Paris.

Believe me that every man you see in a military uniform is not a hero.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Iranians have a very high bar for when Iran's military should become actively and directly involved in these conflicts.

America stood at the summit of power, emerging from the Cold War as an economic, cultural and military force without equal.

Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence.

The conquest of new domains of mathematics proceeds somewhat as do military conquests. Bold dashes into enemy territory capture strongholds. These incursions must then be followed up and supported by broader, more thorough and more cautious operations to secure what has been only tentatively and insecurely grasped.

This absence of similarity among military questions naturally brings out the inability of memory to solve them; also the sterility of invariable forms, such as figures, geometrical drawings ( épures ), plans ( schémas ), etc. One only right solution imposes itself:;: namely, the application, varying according to circumstances, of fixed principles.

Power depends ultimately on physical force. By teaching people that violence is wrong (except, of course, when the system itself uses violence via the police or the military), the system maintains its monopoly on physical force and thus keeps all power in its own hands.

Theodore Kaczynski

Putting aside all the fancy words and academic doubletalk, the basic reason for having a military is to do two jobs -to kill people and to destroy.

Thomas S. Power

A true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with more self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than the former his vows of allegiance to martial duty.

Herman Melville

Now this brings me to my main topic - our military strength - more specifically, how to stay strong against threat from outside, without undermining the economic health that supports our security.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Great indeed is Fear; but it is not, as our military enthusiasts believe and try to make us believe, the only stimulus known for awakening the higher ranges of men's spiritual energy.

Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

The Kingdom of Heaven is a military autocracy and there is no public opinion in it.

Given the current financial crisis and the widespread belief that the 21st century will belong to China, is free trade really making global markets more efficient? Is it promoting our values and making America stronger? Or is it simply strengthening our adversaries and creating a world where countries who abuse the system - such as China - are on the road to economic and military dominance? If Mr. Trump's potential campaign does nothing more than force a real debate on those questions, it will have done a service to both the Republican Party and the country.

Robert Lighthizer

Reparations - not just aid - should be provided by those responsible for devastating Iraqi civilian society by cruel sanctions and military actions, and - together with other criminal states - for supporting Saddam Hussein through his worst atrocities and beyond. That is the minimum that honesty requires.

Throughout history civilian populations and political rulers have talked of peace. We have never been free of war. The soldier, whose profession is war, understands that peace must be enforced by superior military might. The certainty of defeat is the only effective deterrent we can use to maintain peace. Furthermore, we can be strong without being aggressive.

Barry Goldwater

The military system of a nation is not an independent section of the social system but an aspect of its totality.

Some day there is going to be a man sitting in my present chair who has not been raised in the military services and who will have little understanding of where slashes in their estimates can be made with little or no damage. If that should happen while we still have the state of tension that now exists in the world, I shudder to think of what could happen in this country

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Unlike modern military codes, ancient texts are almost never purposely misleading, purposely scrambled.... indeed, literacy was so uncommon until classical times that the very writing of a message sufficed to keep it from almost everybody.

Elizabeth Wayland Barber