A Quote by Smedley Butler

War Is A Racket : I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher- ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service

Smedley Butler

Quote Topics

Am Animation Everyone Faculties Had Higher Just Left Like Members Mental Military Military Service Never Now Orders Original Original Thought Part Profession Racket Remained Service Sure Suspended Thought Time Typical Until Ups War While

Quote Author

Smedley Butler
American - Soldier
July 30, 1881 - June 21, 1940

My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

Smedley Butler

My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military.

Smedley Butler

When I was a freelancer, I thought this journalism thing was a racket, and now that I'm where I am now, I know it's a racket.

Tabitha Soren

Female service members are so integrated into the military, so critical and vital to all functions of the military, from combat service support to combat support, to direct combat, that we could not go to war as a nation - we could not defend America - without our women.

Tammy Duckworth

Every time I tour military outlets, I dedicate the food, fitness and set-ups to their service, because it all came to me through the military.

Robert Irvine

Life is a racket. Writing is a racket. Sincerity is a racket. Everything's a racket.

Nick Tosches

I signed up for military service in the months following 9/11, and later, as a military intelligence officer, I felt called, like so many others, to volunteer for deployment and service in Afghanistan.

Jason Kander

No military contractors should have a 'shoot first' culture that puts civilians or our brave military service members in danger.

Jan Schakowsky

While Congressional members face the political costs of debate on military action, our service members bear the human costs of those decisions. And if we choose to avoid debate, avoid accountability, avoid a hard decision, how can we demand that our military willingly sacrifice their very lives?

Tim Kaine

Anyone graduating from medical school in 1966 had first to fulfill military service before launching a career. Fiercely opposed to the Vietnam War, I sought to avoid it through an assignment to the Public Health Service.

Harold E. Varmus

Let me be clear: I'm a believer in a robust military, which is essential for backing up diplomacy. But the implication is that we need a balanced tool chest of diplomatic and military tools alike. Instead, we have a billionaire military and a pauper diplomacy. The U.S. military now has more people in its marching bands than the State Department has in its foreign service - and that's preposterous.

Nicholas D. Kristof

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

Smedley Butler

I had one good racket, a Wilson Javelin. It was my favorite racket, and I made the mistake of putting it next to the heater. It just got so hot that it melted.

Stefan Edberg

Also in the new constitution, we want to lower the voting age from 20 years to 18 years and also gradually implement a voluntary military service in replacement of the current compulsory military service.

Chen Shui-bian

My first direct encounter with the military was when I joined ROTC as a graduate student, although my father, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, can trace the military service in our family all the way back to the Revolutionary War.

Tammy Duckworth

I like to say I bring the perspective of a kid from Bowmanville... but I understand military service and uniformed service.