Douglas MacArthur

Americans never quit.

You are remembered for the rules you break.

Give me ten thousand Filipino soldiers and I will conquer the world.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days, on other fields will bear the fruits of victory.

There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.

The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on.

Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war.

The enemy is in front of us, the enemy is behind us, the enemy is to the right and to the left of us. They can’t get away this time!

People didn’t want war. We were forced in it. How fast we finish it depends on how free a hand our generals and admirals have. The less interference they get from the politicians the quicker they’ll end it.

No one ever wins a war.

War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.

Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling ones pulse and taking ones temperature. I see that a speaker at the week-end said that this was a time when leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture.

Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.

Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.

War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is likely to be dull.

After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.

War is not a matter for the professional pacifist or militarist. It is for the unprofessional people. They finance and fight it, they bear its losses. Therefore, they should have the deciding voice concerning it. To do this, they require all the information upon which decisions are made. They should know in a difference, whether it is soluble by rational intelligence, or inevitable by force. Not once in a thousand instances would our people (this may not be true of all peoples, however) approve an offensive war. Never would they be lax in defensive action. For this is their country. However, most of their enemies are within it.

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.