Battlefield Quotes: Powerful Words from the Frontlines

"Developments in information technology and globalised media mean that the most powerful military in the history of the world can lose a war, not on the battlefield of dust and blood, but on the battlefield of world opinion"

Timothy Garton Ash, Author

"Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America - not on the battlefields of Vietnam"

Marshall McLuhan, Sociologist

"Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man"

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Novelist

"On the battlefield, the military pledges to leave no soldier behind. As a nation, let it be our pledge that when they return home, we leave no veteran behind"

Dan Lipinski, Politician

"America's fighting men and women sacrifice much to ensure that our great nation stays free. We owe a debt of gratitude to the soldiers that have paid the ultimate price for this cause, as well as for those who are blessed enough to return from the battlefield unscathed"

Allen Boyd, Politician

"I don't believe in war as a solution to any kind of conflict, nor do I believe in heroism on the battlefield because I have never seen any"

Thor Heyerdahl, Explorer

"One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam"

Martin Luther King Jr., Minister

"The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield"

Dwight D. Eisenhower, President

"Being over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the dead and the dying as on a battlefield"

St. Jerome, Saint

"I have traveled a long road from the battlefield to the peace table"

Moshe Dayan, Soldier

"There is still the feeling that women's writing is a lesser class of writing, that what goes on in the nursery or the bedroom is not as important as what goes on in the battlefield, that what women know about is a less category of knowledge"

Erica Jong, Novelist

"In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield"

Douglas MacArthur, Soldier

"Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war"

Otto von Bismarck, Leader

"No study is possible on the battlefield"

Ferdinand Foch, Soldier

"We had the best food any battlefield ever had"

William Westmoreland, Soldier

"I suppose directing on set is the most fun because it's a good crack and you feel you're on the battlefield whereas writing is a fairly solitary undertaking"

Guy Ritchie, Director

"The place to prove you’re right is on the battlefield"

Yevgeny Prigozhin, Businessman

"We will kill everyone on the battlefield. Take no more prisoners of war!"

Yevgeny Prigozhin, Businessman

"Many of the vicious criminals held there have been caught on the battlefield fighting against American troops and shutting down Guantanamo Bay would just require the military to move them elsewhere"

Bill Shuster, Politician

"Hamas' battle is against the Zionist occupation in the Palestinian land. Hamas has no desire to change its battlefield"

Ahmed Yassin, Activist

"American soldiers had to guard prisoners on the inside while receiving mortar and weapons fire from the outside. Guantanamo is distant from any battlefield, making it far more secure"

John Yoo, Educator

"The American flag is an enduring symbol of liberty, democracy, and justice. It is fitting that the House act to protect it as we approach our nation's birthday, and as our men and women in uniform rally behind it in Iraq's battlefields"

Joe Barton, Politician

"However, as our brave men and women continue to return from the battlefields of the War on Terror, Congress must respond by enacting policies that meet the evolving needs of the veterans community"

Randy Neugebauer, Politician

"Sharpe is my favorite role of all that I've played. He's a very complex character. He knows that he's a good soldier, but he will always have to fight the prejudice of aristocratic officers because of his rough working-class upbringing. On the battlefield, he's full of confidence - but off it, he is unsure, a bit shy and ill at ease"

Sean Bean, Actor

"The left has chosen the courts as a major battlefield over social issues"

Rod Parsley, Celebrity

"We have much to be judged on when he comes, slums and battlefields and insane asylums, but these are the symptoms of our illness and the result of our failures in love"

Madeleine L'Engle, Novelist

"When you're in the battlefield, survival is all there is. Death is the only great emotion"

Samuel Fuller, Director

"It was the courts, of course, that took away prayer from our schools, that took away Bible reading from our schools. It's the courts that gave us same-sex marriage. So it is quite a battlefield, and the Supreme Court is the highest court in the land"

Rod Parsley, Celebrity

"There's no such thing as a crowded battlefield. Battlefields are lonely places"

Alfred M. Gray, Soldier

"If the Southeast represents the new battlefield in the war on meth, then Tennessee clearly is at ground zero"

Phil Bredesen, Politician

"Concentrated serum albumin fractionated from blood plasma was effective in battlefield treatment of shock"

Paul D. Boyer, Scientist

"Now that it's officially summer, here's my advice to parents who want to continue teaching their kids during the next two months and learn something themselves: visit Civil War battlefields"

Marvin Olasky, Educator

"More has been screwed up on the battlefield and misunderstood in the Pentagon because of a lack of understanding of the English language than any other single factor"

John W. Vessey, Jr., Soldier

"We must also recognize the new realities of modern warfare and the modern landscape of a battlefield"

Susan Davis, Politician

"The sanctity of our battlefields, monuments, and veterans institutions is of utmost importance to preserve military history and pay respect to those who fought"

Henry Waxman, Politician

"I think that some of our soldiers die in the battlefield and some come home to bad health and die prematurely, just by the nature of the kind of business they're in"

Christopher Shays, Politician

"Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it's be brave or else be killed"

Margaret Mitchell, Novelist