Bayonets Quotes

• Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets.

  Barack Obama

  Horse, Aircraft Carriers, Election

  Third presidential debate between President Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney in Boca Raton, Fla., www.npr.org. October 22, 2012.

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.

  Winston Churchill

  Powerful, Fear, Home

  "The Defence of Freedom and Peace (The Lights are Going Out)", radio broadcast to the United States and to London, October 16, 1938.

  46 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can build a throne with bayonets, but it's difficult to sit on it.

  Boris Yeltsin

  Inspirational, Funny, Motivational

  "A Democracy of Despots" by Donald Murray, (p. 8), 1995.

  57 Copy quote

  Show source

• The bayonet has always been the weapon of the brave and the chief tool of victory

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Military, Brave, Victory

  18 Copy quote

• Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Fear, Inspiration, Power

  Cited in Heinl, Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations (1966).

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• Few men are killed by the bayonet, many are scared by it. Bayonets should be fixed when the fire fight starts

  George S. Patton

  Military, Fighting, Men

  16 Copy quote

• You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Can Do

  18 Copy quote

• The bullet is a fool, the bayonet is a fine chap.

  Alexander Suvorov

  Bullets, Fool, Fine

  "Nauka pobezhdat" by Alexander Suvorov, 1806.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• My belief has always been... that wherever in this land any individual's constitutional rights are being unjustly denied, it is the obligation of the federal government-at point of bayonet if necessary-to restore that individual's constitutional rights

  Ronald Reagan

  Rights, Government, Land

  22 Copy quote

• I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Business, Military, Three

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations". Book by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, 1922.

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• The bullet is a mad thing; only the bayonet knows what it is about.

  Alexander Suvorov

  Military, War, Mad

  "The Science of Victory". Book by Alexander Suvorov, 1796.

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  War, Ideas, Political

  "Journal of International Affairs" by Columbia University. School of International Affairs, (p. 94), 1976.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• The onset of bayonets in the hands of the valiant is irresistible.

  John Burgoyne

  Military, Hands, Valiant

  John Burgoyne (1860). “Orderly Book of Lieut. Gen. John Burgoyne: From His Entry Into the State of New York Until His Surrender at Saratoga, 16th Oct. 1777 : from the Original Manuscript Deposited at Washington's Head Quarters, Newburgh, N.Y.”, p.3

  60 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let's keep our boots polished, bayonets sharpened, and present a picture of force and strength to the Red Army. This is the only language they understand and respect.

  George S. Patton

  Army, Boots, Red

  17 Copy quote

• The power which money gives is that of brute force; it is the power of the bludgeon and the bayonet.

  William Cobbett

  Giving, Force, Brutes

  William Cobbett (1829). “Advice to young men, and, incidentally, to young women, in the middle and higher ranks of life, in a series of letters”, p.51

  37 Copy quote

  Show source

• Then, Sir, we will give them the bayonet!

  Stonewall Jackson

  Military, Giving

  "Stonewall Jackson As Military Commander". Book by John Selby, 2000.

  68 Copy quote

  Show source

• You mention the Navy, for example, and the fact that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets.

  Barack Obama

  Horse, Navy, Example

  "Scientifically speaking, who's funnier: Democrats or Republicans?" by Joel Warner and Peter McGraw, www.wired.com. October 23, 2012.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is peace more destructive of the manhood of living man than war is destructive of his material body.

  Douglas William Jerrold

  Peace, War, Men

  Douglas William Jerrold (1858). “Specimens of Douglas Jerrold's Wit: Together with Selections, Chiefly from His Contributions to Journals : Intended to Illustrate Hs Opinions”, p.176

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The laurels of victory are at the point of the enemy bayonets. They must be plucked there; they must be carried by a hand-to-hand fight if one really means to conquer.

  Ferdinand Foch

  Mean, Fighting, Hands

  "Precepts and Judgments". Book by Ferdinand Foch, 1919.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Not peace at any price! Chains are worse than bayonets.

  Douglas William Jerrold

  Peace, Chains

  12 Copy quote

• It is the cold glitter of the attacker's eye not the point of the questing bayonet that breaks the line.

  George S. Patton

  Eye, Army, Glitter

  "How We Are Changed by War: A Study of Letters and Diaries from Colonial Conflicts to Operation Iraqi Freedom". Book by D.C. Gill, p. 70, 2010.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• A journalist is a grumbler, a censurer, a giver of advice, a regent of sovereigns, a tutor of nations. Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Education, Advice, Four

  9 Copy quote

• A Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me.

  Robert E. Lee

  Love, Kindness, War

  Robert E. Lee (2016). “The Life and Letters of Robert E. Lee (Abridged)”, p.116, BIG BYTE BOOKS

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• A Bayonet's contrition is nothing to the dead.

  Emily Dickinson

  War, Contrition

  Emily Dickinson, Cristanne Miller (2016). “Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them”, p.503, Harvard University Press

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Haman's.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Country, Heart

  Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington (2011). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private”, p.40, Cambridge University Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source