I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that which you call a Gentle-man and is nothing else.
—Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) British Head of State, Military Leader
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
I must have the gentleman to haul and draw with the mariner, and the mariner with the gentleman. I would know him, that would refuse to set his hand to a rope, but I know there is not any such here.
—Francis Drake (1540–96) English Military Leader, Politician
The greatest general is he who makes the fewest mistakes.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love.
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
Valor, glory, firmness, skill, generosity, steadiness in battle and ability to rule—these constitute the duty of a soldier. They flow from his own nature.
—The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture
War is too important a matter to be left to the military.
—Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) French Head of State, Physician, Publisher, Political leader
The wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The military mind is indeed a menace. Old-fashioned futurity that sees only men fighting and dying in smoke and fire; hears nothing more civilized than a cannonade; scents nothing but the stink of battle-wounds and blood.
—Sean O’Casey (1880–1964) Irish Dramatist, Memoirist
Standing armies can never consist of resolute robust men; they may be well-disciplined machines, but they will seldom contain men under the influence of strong passions, or with very vigorous faculties.
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97) English Writer, Feminist
Making the world safe for hypocrisy.
—Thomas Wolfe (1900–38) American Novelist
Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be never so vile. This day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
The army is the true nobility of our country.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chinese Statesman
There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seamen.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–59) English Historian, Essayist, Philanthropist
If our soldiers are not overburdened with money, it is not because they have a distaste for riches; if their lives are not unduly long, it is not because they are disinclined to longevity.
—Sun Tzu (fl. c.544–496 BCE) Chinese General, Military Theorist
No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
O the joy of the strong-brawn’d fighter, towering in the arena in perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
The Royal Navy of England hath ever been its greatest defense and ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength; the floating bulwark of the island.
—William Blackstone (1723–80) English Judge, Jurist, Academic
Soldiers have many faults, but they have one redeeming merit; they are never worshippers of force. Soldiers more than any other men are taught severely and systematically that might is not right. The fact is obvious. The might is in the hundred men who obey. The right (or what is held to be right) is in the one man who commands them.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
History shows that there are no invincible armies.
—Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) Soviet Leader
When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.
—George Washington (1732–99) American Head of State, Military Leader
Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts—a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
Rogues, would you live forever?
—Frederick II of Prussia (1712–86) Prussian Monarch