In Honor of Memorial Day: War And Battle — The Quotations

In Honor of Memorial Day: War And Battle — The Quotations

“Veni, Vedi, Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered)” — Julius Caesar

“We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God’s good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.” — Winston Churchill

George Patton

“We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea and air–war with all our might and with all the strength God has given us–and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.” — Winston Churchill

“To have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. Now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all!…Hitler’s fate was sealed. Mussolini’s fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder” — Winston Churchill

“When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite” — Winston Churchill

“Goddam it, you’ll never get the Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole! Follow me” — Henry P. Crowe

“Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?” — Dan Daly, WWI

“The architects of this wickedness will find no safe harbor in this world. We will chase our enemies to the furthest corners of this Earth. It must be war without quarter, pursuit without rest, victory without qualification” — Tom Delay

“All’s fair in love and war” — Francis Edwards

“Victory was never in doubt. Its cost was…What was in doubt, in all our minds, was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery at the end, or whether the last Marine would die knocking out the last Japanese gun and gunner” — Major General Graves B. Erskin in Reference To The Battle Of Iwo Jima

“Damn the torpedoes, Full speed ahead!” — Admiral David Glasgow Farragut

“My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack” — Marshal Foch, WW1

“When this war is over, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell” — Admiral Bill Halsey on December 7, 1941

“Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.” — Ernest Hemmingway

“From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.” — Thomas Jefferson

“It is well that war is so terrible–we should grow too fond of it” — Robert E. Lee

“I have not yet begun to fight!” — John Paul Jones

“Nuts” — General MacAuliffe (when asked to surrender during the Battle of the Bulge, 1944)

“In war there is no substitute for victory” — General Douglas MacArthur

“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it” — General Douglas MacArthur

“One should never allow chaos to develop in order to avoid going to war, because one does not avoid a war but instead puts it off to his disadvantage” — Niccolo Machiavelli

“War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms” — Niccolo Macchiavelli

“I say to our enemies: We are coming. God may have mercy on you, but we won’t” — John MCcain

“We send cruise missiles and then we think everything’s all right or we try to bring them to trial. My friends, this time they’ve gone too far. This time we’re serious. This time we won’t quit until they are gone, completely gone from the face of the earth” — John McCain

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself” — John Stuart Mill

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf” — George Orwell

“Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here” — Captain John Parker, 1775

“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” — George Patton

“Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like I’d shoot a snake!” — George Patton

“We have met the enemy and they are ours” — Oliver “Hazard” Perry

“All right, they’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us… they can’t get away this time” — Lieutenant General Lewis B.”Chesty” Puller (when surrounded by 8 enemy divisions)

“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” — William Prescott at the Battle Of Bunker Hill

“Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong” — Ronald Reagan

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan” — FDR

“Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them” — FDR

“They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist…” — Last words of General John Sedgwick (1813-1864)

“War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over” — Gen William T. Sherman

“Yonder are the Hessians. They were bought for seven pounds and tenpence a man. Are you worth more? Prove it. Tonight the American flag floats from yonder hill or Molly Stark sleeps a widow!” — John Stark at the Battle of Bennington in 1777

“I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.” — Yamamoto after Pearl Harbor

Share this!

Enjoy reading? Share it with your friends!