Military Quotes: Timeless Wisdom from Warriors and Leaders

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom"

Martin Luther King Jr., Minister

"In view of China's growing military strength and intentions, the best way to safeguard Asia's permanent peace and prosperity is to have all Asian countries join forces with other democratic countries in the world to form a global community of democracies"

Jim Costa, Politician

"We can all be proud of our men and women in the military who are following their orders, carrying out their missions and sacrificing so much to give the Iraqi people a chance for a more peaceful and prosperous future"

Ron Kind, Politician

"The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force"

Thomas Jefferson, President

"I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Metro"

Charles de Gaulle, Leader

"Surrounded by military airplanes and warships from the world's most civilized and developed nations, we have been denied permission by friendly governments, for reasons of security, to land anywhere, but in the tiny, and still neutral, Republic of Djibouti"

Thor Heyerdahl, Explorer

"The more equality women have, the fairer, more civilized and tolerant society will be. Sexual equality is a lot more effective against terrorism than military strength"

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Politician

"I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new-one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare"

Dwight D. Eisenhower, President

"I am the supreme warlord; I do not wage war in order to achieve definite military objectives, but to destroy the enemy"

Wilhelm II, Statesman

"This resemblance became clear in the Bush the father's visits to the region. He wound up being impressed by the royal and military regimes and envied them for staying decades in their positions and embezzling the nation's money with no supervision"

Osama bin Laden, Criminal

"In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497"

Warren Buffett, Businessman

"A piece of spaghetti or a military unit can only be led from the front end"

George S. Patton, Soldier

"Military justice is to justice what military music is to music"

Groucho Marx, Comedian

"Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms"

Groucho Marx, Comedian

"Well, my father was in the Army and we traveled quite a bit when I was growing up, and I thought that I would like to have a military career, although I was drawn more towards the Navy"

Marc Garneau, Astronaut

"I went to military college in Canada and graduated as an officer in the Navy but also as an engineer"

Marc Garneau, Astronaut

"As costly as it was in the lives of our men and women in uniform, in military assets, and in esteem and pride, Pearl Harbor was a watershed moment for America"

Joe Baca, Politician

"As I have been saying for more than a year now, turning this vital mission over to the Iraqi people as soon as possible should remain a topic of debate for Congress while relying on our military commanders to set up the timetable"

Howard Coble, Politician

"I would sincerely regret, and which never shall happen whilst I am in office, a military guard around the President"

Andrew Jackson, President

"For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank"

Winston Churchill, Statesman

"The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution"

John F. Kennedy, President

"A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today's military rejects include tomorrow's hard-core unemployed"

John F. Kennedy, President

"I look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose"

John F. Kennedy, President

"We find that the Romans owed the conquest of the world to no other cause than continual military training, exact observance of discipline in their camps, and unwearied cultivation of the other arts of war"

Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, Writer

"My mother did all she could to control me, but at age 14 she sent me to a military school"

Sam Donaldson, Journalist

"The two things that could have been better is number one, to get major military force into the community almost immediately to make sure that there was law and order. Number two, we had enough helicopters to airlift food into the centers of population and those places"

Warren Rudman, Politician

"Several studies, and a number of public statements by senior military and political personalities, testify that - except for disputes between the present nuclear states - all military conflicts, as well as threats to peace, can be dealt with using conventional weapons"

Joseph Rotblat, Physicist

"And from a military school which taught me that to fit into society, you can't just do anything you damn well please because it will suit you. And that it's much better to be with the winners than it is with the losers"

Sam Donaldson, Journalist

"The president's very right about one thing: When you have a disaster of that scale, whether it be natural or a terrorist attack, there's only one part of our entire government, state or local, that is equipped to handle it, and that's the U.S. military"

Warren Rudman, Politician

"Native Americans had only stone and wooden weapons and no animals that could be ridden. Those military advantages repeatedly enabled troops of a few dozen mounted Spaniards to defeat Indian armies numbering in the thousands"

Jared Diamond, Author

"My mother gave me a push. If I hadn't had her, maybe I wouldn't have had the push. If I hadn't gone to military school, maybe I wouldn't have decided to get with the program. Maybe I'd be running a bulldozer, rather than going on and doing something more"

Sam Donaldson, Journalist

"If the military might of Germany and Japan are ultimately to be crushed, the United Nations, one and all, must definitely and urgently strive toward a total war effort"

William Lyon Mackenzie King, Politician

"The decision to use the atom bomb on Japanese cities, and the consequent buildup of enormous nuclear arsenals, was made by governments, on the basis of political and military perceptions"

Joseph Rotblat, Physicist

"But courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility"

Erwin Rommel, Soldier

"A major power can afford a military debacle only when it looks like a political victory"

Friedrich Durrenmatt, Author

"War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men"

Georges Clemenceau, Leader

"The world must know that America holds to the highest standards of military conduct and human rights protections. Anything less is unacceptable"

Barbara Mikulski, Politician

"And like the old soldier in that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the sight to see that duty"

Douglas MacArthur, Soldier

"My decision to register women confirms what is already obvious throughout our society-that women are now providing all types of skills in every profession. The military should be no exception"

Jimmy Carter, President

"All military and most commercial aircraft use our designs that process power from jet engines"

Amar Bose, Inventor

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