Top 163 Quotes & Sayings by Douglas MacArthur - Page 2

Are we going to continue to yield personal liberties and community autonomy to the steady inexplicable centralization all political power or restore the Republic to Constitutional direction, regain our personal liberties and reassume the individual state's primary responsibility and authority in the conduct of local affairs? Are we going to permit a continuing decline in public and private morality or re-establish high ethical standards as the means of regaining a diminishing faith in the integrity of our public and private institutions?

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young. When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and then only, are you grown old. And then, indeed as the ballad says, you just fade away

Training distinguishes an army from an armed mob.

The nations of the world will have to unite for the next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of Earth must some day make a common front against attack by people from other planets.

In short, is American life of the future to be characterized by freedom or by servitude, strength or weakness? The answer must be clear and unequivocal if we are to avoid the pitfalls toward which we are now heading with such certainty. In many respects it is not to be found in any dogma of political philosophy but in those immutable precepts which underlie the Ten Commandments.

The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training - sacrifice.

There are no atheists in the foxholes of Bataan.

The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave.

The chickens are coming home to roost, and you happen to have just moved into the chicken house.

Men will not fight and die without knowing what they are fighting and dying for.

In no other profession are the penalties for employing untrained personnel so appalling or so irrevocable as in the military.

If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door.

Defensive strategy never has produced ultimate victory.

I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only be deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.

The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of government power.

I came out of Bataan and I shall return!

War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war there is no substitute for victory.

A good soldier, whether he leads a platoon or an army, is expected to look backward as well as forward; but he must think only forward.

Wars are caused by unprotected wealth.

Years wrinkle the skin. Giving up wrinkles the soul.

Competitive sports keep alive in us a spirit and vitality. Sports teach the strong to know when they are weak and the brave to face themselves when they are afraid; to be proud and unbowed in defeat, and yet humble and gentle in victory; to master ourselves before we attempt to master others; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; and to give the predominance of courage over timidity.

Expect only 5% of an intelligence report to be accurate.The trick of a good commander is to isolate the 5%.

Believe me, sir, never a night goes by, be I ever so tired, but I read the Word of God before I go to bed.

People of the Philippines: I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God our forces stand again on Philippine soil—soil consecrated in the blood of our two peoples. We have come dedicated and committed to the task of destroying every vestige of enemy control over your daily lives, and of restoring upon a foundation of indestructible strength, the liberties of your people.

Freemasonry embraces the highest moral laws and will bear the test of any system of ethics or philosophy ever promulgated for the uplift of man.

Nine times of ten an army has been destroyed because its supply lines have been severed

I had learned one of the bitter lessons of life: never try to regain the past, the fire will have become ashes.

It is my earnest hope, and indeed the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past...

The inescapable price of liberty is an ability to preserve it from destruction.

This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war.

I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes... But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end.

Worry, doubt, fear and despair are the enemies which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die.

No plan ever survives its first encounter with the enemy.

However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.

I realize that advice is worth what it costs--that is, nothing.

The soldier, above all other men, is required to perform the highest act of religious offering-sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death he discloses those divine attributes which his amke gave when he created in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instincts can take the place of the divine annunciation and spiritual gift which will alone sustain him.

Security lies in our ability to produce.

It is my earnest hope - indeed the hope of all mankind - that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past, a world found upon faith and understanding, a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance and justice.

The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point?but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

I came through and I shall return.

It seems strangely difficult for some to realize that here in Asia is where the Communist conspirators have elected to make their play for global conquest, and that we have joined the issue thus raised on the battlefield; that here we fight Europe's war with arms while the diplomats there still fight it with words; that if we lose the war to communism in Asia the fall of Europe is inevitable, win it and Europe most probably would avoid war and yet preserve freedom. As you pointed out, we must win. There is no substitute for victory.

I have one criticism about the Negro troops who fought under my command in the Korean War. They didn't send me enough of them.

In war, as it is waged now, with the enormous losses on both sides, both sides will lose. It is a form of mutual suicide.

We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war. A new era is upon us. Even the lesson of victory itself brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concepts of war.

Old soldiers never die, they just lose their grip on reality after traumatic brain injuries.

We are bound no longer by the straitjacket of the past and nowhere is the change greater than in our profession of arms. What, you may well ask, will be the end of all of this? I would not know! But I would hope that our beloved country will drink deep from the chalice of courage.

Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain with death - the seas bear only commerce - men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world lies quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed. And in reporting this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way.

Few names have left a firmer imprint upon the pages of the history of American times than has that of Ty Cobb... he seems to have understood that in the competition of baseball, just as in war, defensive strategy never has produced ultimate victory.

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

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace.

In war, indeed, there can be no substitute for victory.

The great question is, can war be outlawed from the world? If so, it would mark the greatest advance in civilization since the Sermon on the Mount.

The outfit soon took on color, dash and a unique flavor which is the essence of that elusive and deathless thing called soldiering.

Blank cartridges should never be used against a mob, nor should a volley be fired over the heads of the mob even if there is little danger of hurting persons in the rear. Such things will be regarded as an admission of weakness, or an attempt to bluff, and may do more harm than good.

Never ask age of a woman.

There is not one incident in the history of humanity in which defeatism led to peace which was anything other than a complete fraud.

No army has ever done so much with so little.

I have every confidence in the ultimate success of our joint cause; but success in modern war requires something more than courage and a willingness to die: it requires careful preparation.

We must offer the world leadership designed to advance the goal of universal progress and enduring peace.

I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God, our forces stand again on Philippine soil.