Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Norman Schwarzkopf
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American military man Norman Schwarzkopf.
Last updated on September 16, 2024.
What people don't understand is this is something that we only have in America. There is no other country in the world where the ordinary citizen can go out and enjoy hunting and fishing. There's no other nation in the world where that happens. And it's very much a part of our heritage.
I can stand in a crystal stream without another human around me and cast all day long, and if I never catch a single fish, I can come home and still feel like I had a wonderful time. It's the being there that's important.
A great deal of the capability of an army is its dedication to its cause and its will to fight. You can have the best equipment in the world, you can have the largest numbers in the world, but, if you're not dedicated to your cause, if you don't have the will to fight, then, you are not going to have a very good army.
Tanks being deployed far forward is an indication of offensive action; tanks in depth is an indication of defensive action.
I think any student of military strategy would tell you that in order to attack a position, you should have a ratio of approximately 3 to 1 in favor of the attacker.
True courage is being afraid, and going ahead and doing your job anyhow, that's what courage is.
I've managed to convince my wife that somewhere in the Bible it says, 'Man cannot have too many shotguns and fishing poles.'
War's a profanity because, let's face it, you've got two opposing sides trying to settle their differences by killing as many of each other as they can.
Good generalship is a realization that... you've got to try and figure out how to accomplish your mission with a minimum loss of human life.
I may have made my reputation as a general in the Army, and I'm very proud of that. But I've always felt that I was more than one-dimensional. I'd like to think I'm a caring human being.
I am living proof that if you catch prostate cancer early, it can be reduced to a temporary inconvenience, and you can go back to a normal life.
When placed in command, take charge.
I've got to tell you what, the soldier doesn't fight very hard for a leader who is going to shoot him, okay, on his own whim. That's not what military leadership is all about.
I was lucky enough to lead a very successful war.
If Saddam were to be replaced tomorrow he would probably be replaced with someone who's just as bad or worse than he is.
I get angry at a principle, not a person.
When I fish, I stop thinking about anything else. But truth be told, if you want to declare victories, I can tell you the fish have won a lot more than I have. It's interesting that something with a brain the size of a fish's can outsmart us humans, who think we are el supremo.
I am an environmentalist, but I'm not a wacko environmentalist. I believe that mankind and nature can live side-by-side for the mutual benefit of both.
I'm not a politician. I'd make a lousy politician.
He is neither a strategist nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general. Other than that he's a great military man.
The Patriot missile is a point defence missile. Point defence means that you put the missile at a location to defend a very specific target such as an airfield, a supply dump or a headquarters.
I hate war. Absolutely, I hate war.
Any soldier worth his salt should be antiwar. And still there are things worth fighting for.
Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.
You learn far more from negative leadership than from positive leadership. Because you learn how not to do it. And, therefore, you learn how to do it.
Going to war without France is like going hunting without an accordion.
Someone once asked, 'What is the difference between me and Saddam Hussein?' The answer is, 'I have a conscience and he doesn't.'
I do not want to be a pawn in a political campaign.
I saw Kuwait many times before the war. I remember it as a beautiful place, full of very nice people, and it's a tragedy to see that somebody could set out to deliberately destroy a country the way the Iraqis have.
All you have to do is hold your first soldier who is dying in your arms, and have that terribly futile feeling that I can't do anything about it... Then you understand the horror of war.
It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.
Particularly when you're dealing with very high ranking people, you know, you have to get their attention, they are used to, by their rank, of having their own way and doing their own thing and when it's necessary to all work together on something, sometimes you have to hit the mule between the eyes with a two by four to get its attention.
It's nice to feel that you have a purpose.
A professional soldier understands that war means killing people, war means maiming people, war means families left without fathers and mothers.
The fun of fishing is catching 'em, not killing 'em.
Had the United States and the United Kingdom gone on alone to capture Baghdad, under the provisions of the Geneva and Hague conventions we would have been considered occupying powers and therefore would have been responsible for all the costs of maintaining or restoring government, education and other services for the people of Iraq.
They say the good Lord doesn't charge you for the days you hunt and fish, and I believe that.
There's no doubt in my mind that whichever commander ordered the blowing up of Kamisiyah did so in following the instructions that he had received.
Nobody can ever pin you down when you speculate.
Had we taken all of Iraq, we would have been like a dinosaur in the tar pit - we would still be there, and we, not the United Nations, would be bearing the costs of that occupation.
Moving into an unoccupied village when there's no opposition, I don't call that a military victory.
I may have made my reputation as a general in the Army and I'm very proud of that. But I've always felt that I was more than one-dimensional.
Good generalship is the realisation that you've got to figure out how to accomplish your mission with the minimum loss of human life.
The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.
It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.
As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he's a great military man, I want you to know that.
I am not one of these guys who is just going to waste American lives by throwing people needlessly in frontal attacks up against the enemy if I can avoid doing that.
Unfortunately, if you've ever been in southern Georgia on the beaches in a lightning storm, if you're out there, you're in great, great danger, and you can be killed very, very quickly.
An awful lot has been written about my temper.
To be an effective leader, you have to have a manipulative streak - you have to figure out the people working for you and give each tasks that will take advantage of his strength.
For the entire first part of my career, I prided myself on being unflappable even in the most chaotic of circumstances.
First of all, Saddam did not win the war, even though he says he did, I mean, you know, that's a joke and everybody in the world knows it.
You can't help but... with 20/20 hindsight, go back and say, 'Look, had we done something different, we probably wouldn't be facing what we are facing today.'
Carpet bombing tends to portray something that's totally indiscriminate, you know, en masse without regard to the target.
I do hunt, and I do fish, and I don't apologize to anybody for hunting and fishing.
The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.
As young West Point cadets, our motto was 'duty, honor, country.' But it was in the field, from the rice paddies of Southeast Asia to the sands of the Middle East, that I learned that motto's fullest meaning. There I saw gallant young Americans of every race, creed and background fight, and sometimes die, for 'duty, honor, and their country.'
When the Normandy Invasion was planned, a very specific strategic objective was given, and that strategic objective was the basis upon which the plan for the Normandy Invasion was derived.
War is a profane thing.
If it had been our intention to take Iraq, if it had been our intention to destroy the country, if it had been our intention to overrun the country, we could have done it unopposed.
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