Top 163 Quotes & Sayings by Douglas MacArthur
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American military man Douglas MacArthur.
Last updated on September 16, 2024.
Americans never quit.
You are remembered for the rules you break.
Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.
Life is a lively process of becoming.
A better world shall emerge based on faith and understanding.
Could I have but a line a century hence crediting a contribution to the advance of peace, I would yield every honor which has been accorded by war.
There is no substitute for victory.
I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.
I've looked that old scoundrel death in the eye many times but this time I think he has me on the ropes.
Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.
It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.
Part of the American dream is to live long and die young. Only those Americans who are willing to die for their country are fit to live.
In war, you win or lose, live or die - and the difference is just an eyelash.
Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.
I have known war as few men now living know it. It's very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.
Like the old soldier of the 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 light to see that duty. Goodbye.
In war there is no substitute for victory.
We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction.
Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.
I suppose, in a way, this has become part of my soul. It is a symbol of my life. Whatever I have done that really matters, I've done wearing it. When the time comes, it will be in this that I journey forth. What greater honor could come to an American, and a soldier?
Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.
The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle: the roar of the crowd on the one side, and the voice of your conscience on the other.
Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency.
Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.
They died hard, those savage men - like wounded wolves at bay. They were filthy, and they were lousy, and they stunk. And I loved them.
There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.
It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.
Never give an order that can't be obeyed.
The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.
One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda.
In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.
I have just returned from visiting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world!
My first recollection is that of a bugle call.
The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.
Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.
WE HAVE HAD OUR LAST CHANCE. THE PROBLEM NOW IS BASICALLY THEOLOGICAL, AND INVOLVES SPIRITUALITY AND IMPROVEMENT OF human CHARACTER. IT MUST BE OF THE SPIRIT IF WE ARE TO SAVE THE FLESH.
By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder - infinitely prouder - to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle field but in the home repeating with him our simple daily prayer, Our Father Who Art in Heaven.
Once war is forced upon us, there is no alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War’s very object is victory-not prolonged indecision.
Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair; these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whatever your years, there is in every being's heart the love of wonder, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy and the game of life.
For those to whom much is given, much is required. It is not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up. There is no substitute for victory.
No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.
Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.
The issues which today confront the nation are clearly defined and so fundamental as to directly involve the very survival of the Republic. Are we going to preserve the religious base to our origin, our growth and our progress, or yield to the devious assaults of atheistic or other anti-religious forces? Are we going to maintain our present course toward State Socialism with Communism just beyond or reverse the present trend and regain our hold upon our heritage of liberty and freedom?
Youth is not entirely a time of life; it is a state of mind. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubts; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.
Even when opportunity knocks, a man still has to get up off his seat and open the door.
Have a good plan, execute it violently, and do it today.
The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of 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!
Rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind.
There are some who, for varying reasons, would appease Red China. They are blind to history's clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance where this end has justified that means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace. Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative.
Optimism is denial, so face the facts and move on
"Duty, Honor, Country" - those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.
History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.
Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.
Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense. Our threat is from the insidious forces working from within which have already so drastically altered the character of our free institutions - those institutions we proudly called the American way of life.
Give me ten thousand Filipino soldiers and I will conquer the world.
A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.
Preparedness is the key to success and victory.
Beware not the enemy from 'without' but the enemy from 'within'.
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