Soldier Quotes - Page 23

• A nation fights well in proportion to the amount of men and materials it has. And the other equation is that the individual soldier in that army is a more effective soldier the poorer his standard of living has been in the past.

  Norman Mailer

  War, Fighting, Army

  Norman Mailer (2013). “The Naked and the Dead: 50th Anniversary Edition, With a New Introduction by the Author”, p.174, Henry Holt and Company

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our poetry emulates the recent progress in military strategy: Our army's strength is the foot soldiers.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Strength, Military, Army

  4 Copy quote

• I used to think of deathlike I suppose soldiers think of it: it was a possible thing that I could well avoid by my skill.

  Stendhal

  Thinking, Skills, Used

  7 Copy quote

• What signifies Philosophy that does not apply to some Use? May we not learn from hence, that black Clothes are not so fit to wear in a hot Sunny Climate or Season, as white ones; because in such Cloaths the Body is more heated by the Sun when we walk abroad, and are at the same time heated by the Exercise, which double Heat is apt to bring on putrid dangerous Fevers? The Soldiers and Seamen, who must march and labour in the Sun, should in the East or West Indies have an Uniform of white?

  Benjamin Franklin

  Philosophy, Exercise, West Indies

  Benjamin Franklin (1806). “The Complete Works, in Philosophy, Politics, and Morals, of the Late Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Now First Collected and Arranged: with Memoirs of His Early Life, Written by Himself ; in Three Volumes”, p.109

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is not enough that our life is an easy one. We must live on the stretch, retiring to our rest like soldiers on the eve of a battle, looking forward to the strenuous sortie of the morrow.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Struggle, Battle

  Henry David Thoreau (2007). “My Thoughts Are Murder to the State: Thoreau's Essays on Political Philosophy”, p.163, David M Gross

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Until the end of the Middle Ages, and in many cases afterwards too, in order to obtain initiation in a trade of any sort whatever--whether that of courtier, soldier, administrator, merchant or workman--a boy did not amass the knowledge necessary to ply that trade before entering it, but threw himself into it; he then acquired the necessary knowledge.

  Philippe Aries

  Boys, Order, Age

  Philippe Ariès (1962). “Centuries of childhood: a social history of family life”, Vintage

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Prayer, Heart

  4 Copy quote

• I got a certain type of respect in the streets, that's why they call me Tha Truth. And I gotta speak the truth. I gotta stand up for what's right. Every great person and true soldier has a great story to tell and this is a part of my story.

  Trae tha Truth

  Stories, Speak, Certain

  "Interview: Trae Tha Truth On Being Banned From Radio One & His Friendship With Lupe Fiasco". Interview with Maurice Bobb, www.complex.com. September 8, 2010.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society. If one colony member devotes its life to service over marriage, the individual is of benefit to the society, even though it does not have personal offspring. A soldier going into battle will benefit his country, but he runs a higher risk of death than one who does not. An altruist benefits the group, but a layabout or coward who saves his own energy and reduces his bodily risk passes the resulting social cost to others.

  E. O. Wilson

  Running, Country, Risk

  10 Copy quote

• I received a letter from a lad asking me for an easy berth. To this I replied: You cannot be an editor; do not try the law; do not think of the ministry; let alone all ships and merchandise; abhor politics; don't practice medicine; be not a farmer or a soldier or a sailor; don't study, don't think. None of these are easy. O, my son, you have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave!

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Jobs, Son, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• I don't know how long it has been since my ear has been free from the roll of a drum. It is the music I sleep by, and I love it.... I shall remain here while anyone remains, and do whatever comes to my hand. I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them.

  Clara Barton

  War, Sleep, Fighting

  57 Copy quote

• In Iraq, four American soldiers have been arrested and charged with stealing a million dollars cash. After hearing about it the Fox network announced plans for a new reality show called 'GI Joe Millionaire.'

  Conan O'Brien

  Reality, Iraq, Four

  4 Copy quote

• When I left Springfield [to become President] I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Christian, Son, People

  34 Copy quote

• The soldier takes pride in saluting his Captain,
  The devotee proffers a knee to his Lord,
  Some back a mare thrown from a thoroughbred,
  Troy backed its Helen, Troy died and adored;
  Great nations blossom above,
  A slave bows down to a slave.

  William Butler Yeats

  Loyalty, Pride, Knees

  William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.581, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• So here they are, the dog-faced soldiers, the regulars, the fifty-cents-a-day professionals riding the outposts of the nation, from Fort Reno to Fort Apache, from Sheridan to Stark. They were all the same. Men in dirty-shirt blue and only a cold page in the history books to mark their passing. But wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States.

  Frank Nugent

  Dog, Dirty, Book

  4 Copy quote

• According to U.S. strategy, if you never see the other, his destruction will be more acceptableso that when Iraqi soldiers surrendered, sooner than expected, it was as if they emerged from a dream, a flash-back, a lost epoch--an epoch when the enemy still had a body and was still "like us.

  Serge Daney

  Dream, Enemy, Body

  6 Copy quote

• The sacred obligation to the Union soldiers must not - will not be forgotten nor neglected. But those who fought against the Nation cannot and do not look to it for relief. Confederate soldiers and their descendants are to share with us and our descendants the destiny of America. Whatever, therefore, we their fellow citizens can do to remove burdens from their shoulders and to brighten their lives is surely in the pathway of humanity and patriotism.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Destiny, America, Humanity

  Letter to Oliver Downing. "Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes: Nineteenth President of the United States". Book edited by Charles Richard Williams, The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, March 15, 1889.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• There have been many Presidents of the United States and the roll will be indefinitely extended. We have had a number of brilliant soldiers, but only one great general.

  Chauncey Depew

  Numbers, President, United States

  Chauncey Mitchell Depew (1894). “Life and Later Speeches of Chauncey M. Depew”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Without a home must the soldier go, a changeful wanderer, and can warm himself at no home-lit hearth.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Home, Lit, Wanderers

  4 Copy quote

• Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against vanity want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it.

  Blaise Pascal

  Philosophical, Writing, Heart

  Blaise Pascal (2013). “Pensées”, p.46, Courier Corporation

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The business of a general is to kick away the ladder behind soldiers when they have climbed up a height.

  Sun Tzu

  Ladders, Height, Kicks

  Sun Tzu, Shang Yang (1997). “The Art of War”, p.47, Wordsworth Editions

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• History is reticent about women who were common soldiers, who bore arms, belonged to regiments, and took part in battles on the same terms as men, though hardly a war has been waged without women soldiers in the ranks.

  Steig Larsson

  War, Men, Battle

  4 Copy quote

• I was eighteen, this was back in '46, so we also had these very frightening images of soldiers in the streets of Paris. So the effect of war, plus my shyness, plus my lack of education - I was afraid of men, really. It changes later, but it took me a certain time to adjust.

  Agnes Varda

  War, Men, Streets Of Paris

  Interview with Sheila Heti, believermag.com. October 1, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Keep unscathed the good name; keep out of peril the honor without which even your battered old soldier who is hobbling into his grave on half-pay and a wooden leg would not change with Achilles.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Names, Honor, Half

  5 Copy quote

• God gives His toughest battles to His strongest soldiers.

  Jennifer Lee

  Giving, Battle, Strongest

  18 Copy quote