Top 1200 Military General Quotes & Sayings

I grew up in a military family, and there's something about that military-style uniform, all cleaned up, a brutal control effort the military necessarily breeds.

In general, it should be in our interest to get organizations out of military activity and into politics.

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.

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.

A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.

Official Washington cannot tell the American people that the real purpose of its gargantuan military expenditures and belligerent interventions is to make the world safe for General Motors, General Electric, General Dynamics, and all the other generals.

The governments and the hard-headed military establishment and the general conservative part of America have never taken much interest in democracy, anyway.

Ronald Reagan in foreign affairs, I think, was someone who had certain, very general ideas, general propositions by which he lives: To combat communism, to build up the American military power to assure our national security against any conceivable threat.

When we first met, I was probably six layers down in the military structure, but General McChrystal at that time was a soldier's leader, and he was part of the task force. So everyone developed close relationships.

[General James Mattis] a very talented individual. He's - has a personal library of about 10,000 books and he's read most of them on military history and strategy and so forth.

They say in the military that a good battle plan can last as long as five minutes in real fighting. After that, it comes down to if the general is favored by fate and the spirits.

The intellectual and moral failures common to America's general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship. Any explanation that fixes culpability on individuals is insufficient. No one leader, civilian or military, caused failure in Vietnam or Iraq. Different military and civilian leaders in the two conflicts produced similar results. In both conflicts, the general officer corps designed to advise policymakers, prepare forces and conduct operations failed to perform its intended functions.

What is and isn't justified by military necessity is, naturally, open to interpretation. One of the key concepts, though, is the law of proportionality. A military attack that results in civilian casualties - 'collateral damage' - is acceptable as long as the military benefits outweigh the price that is paid by humanity.

Poland, after the First World War, was beset by chaos, disorder, and a foolish incursion by the Red Army, which helped to produce the ultra-nationalist military dictatorship of General Pilsudski.

United States has comparative advantage in military force. It tends to react to anything at first with military force, that's what it's good at. And I think they overdid it. There was more military force than was necessary.

I'm not a military general, a business guru, not a philosopher or author. It's only me.

Senator McGovern is very sincere when he says that he will try to cut the military budget by 30%. And this is to drive a knife in the heart of Israel... Jews don't like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States... American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don't want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.

First, the constitution ought to secure a genuine and guard against a select militia, by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms; and that all regulations tending to render this general militia useless and defenceless, by establishing select corps of militia, or distinct bodies of military men, not having permanent interests and attachments in the community to be avoided.

Military organization, like religious organization, can be seen as a paradigm of organization in general.

I think General Pershing was the most military figure I've ever seen.

It should not be hard to say that Vladimir Putin's military has conducted war crimes in Aleppo because it is never acceptable for military to specifically target civilians, which is what's happened there, through the Russian military.

Our country regularly uses military force, but only a fraction of Americans serve in the military. This means fewer and fewer people have a direct link to the military, and yet it remains as important as ever that we have a rich understanding of what we are doing as a country.

General Motors, General Mills, General Foods, general ignorance, general apathy, and general cussedness elect presidents and Congressmen and maintain them in power.

General Giap was one of the most brilliant military strategists of our era, who in Dien Bien Phu was able to place missile launchers in remote, mountainous jungles, something the yankee and European military officers considered impossible.

When the Defense Department was established after World War II, a law said that any defense secretary with military experience must have been out of the military at least seven years. General [James] Mattis doesn't meet that.

My definition, a definition in the drill books from the time that General Von Steuben wrote the regulations for General George Washington, the definition of the object of military training is success in battle... It wouldn't be any sense to have a military organization on the backs of the American taxpayers with any other definition.

One of the great things about the SEAL teams in particular, and the American military in general, is the tremendous diversity of backgrounds and experience that people bring to their service.

Sophocles was a general: a warrior writing plays about military situations.

Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.

In truth the importance of U.K. airstrikes and the U.K.'s eight additional planes is more political than military. It is in honesty a micro military issue. There is no great military necessity for the U.K. to be involved since planes are queuing up from a wide range of countries over the skies of Syria.

JAG is an acronym for the Judge Advocate General, which is the judicial system of the military.

I think we're being laughed at all over the world. I think that if you look at our military, we can't beat ISIS, General George Patton, General Douglas MacArthur are spinning in their grave. We can't beat ISIS, okay? I think that our veterans are not taken care of, they're treated worse than illegal immigrants, by the way.

Climate change is absolutely real and if you don't believe that you ought to believe every four-star general in our military is planning for it.

Anybody who was in the military or a military family has a certain sensitivity to the separation. Everyone knows military wives have the hardest jobs. I was born into one. When I think back to those days, I didn't appreciate it then.

I have members of my family who are in the military. I have friends who are in the military. Classmates who served in the military.

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 reason we've always had a civilian in that job [Secretary of Defence] is because we really believe that it is policymakers who ought to control the military and not have the military control the military.

We're going to rebuild our military. Our military is depleted. Our military is frankly, our military is in trouble.

It is a major world power, and today it is an economic and military leader - no doubt about it. That is why America has a strong influence on the situation in the world in general.

General Electric, NBC's parent, is one of the largest corporations in the world, with an anti-labor history of outsourcing jobs and with financial links to military and nuclear power industries.

I believe that detente was having almost the opposite effect of what was intended. What was intended was to sort of end the contest for power and to stop Soviet expansion, especially by military means and the military build-up, the military contest

It's been over a year since they've graduated, but neither of the Bush twins have found any work. Why don't they sign up (for military service in Iraq)? Do they hate America, or just freedom in general?

I believe that detente was having almost the opposite effect of what was intended. What was intended was to sort of end the contest for power and to stop Soviet expansion, especially by military means and the military build-up, the military contest.

Well, it's a problem in general with the American military. If you are the biggest and the strongest military power in the world, you have this natural reluctance to learn the quirky ways of the natives in faraway lands.

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General.

We lived, until I was 12 or so, in communal apartment with five different families and the same kitchen, in two little - my brother and me and my parents. It was hell, but it was a common thing. My father was not general or admiral, but he was colonel. He was teaching in military academy military topography.

General Otis is proclaimed American Military Governor of the Philippines and I protest a thousand times and with all the force in my soul against such pretension.

If you come from a military culture, and you go into see the general or the commander, and he talks to you very calmly and says, 'I'm very disappointed in you,' that's devastating.

Clearly the American military has been a force for good for the United States. There's a reason we have a standing military. But there's something to be said for having a much smaller military because then we wouldn't be tempted to get involved in things we shouldn't be getting involved in.

General James Mattis is a storied and much-respected military leader.

Donald Trump in Philadelphia, and he's delivering a very substantive speech on military preparedness, the status of the current military. He detailed the deterioration of the U.S. military in the past eight years and explained how he's going to rebuild it and why we need to, and it's a very tough audience. It's an expressly military audience, and they are of course listening for any sign that he's not really genuine here. I think, knocking this out of the park as far as that audience is concerned.

Military families are increasingly living away from military bases, embedded in civilian neighborhoods. It gives military families and civilians the opportunity for greater exposure to one another, yet many feel lonely and isolated.

The trouble with military rule is that every colonel or general is soon full of ambition. The navy takes over today and the army tomorrow.

One of the reasons that I'm still in the military - or I stayed in the military - is because I think the military has been a place where certainly people could improve, advance, and were treated fairly.

If you read any sort of, like, military general autobiographies or biographies, most of them never wanted to fight, you know? It's necessary. War is necessary.

General Atomics, the progenitor of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, started life in 1955 when a major military contractor, General Dynamics, feared that the military hardware market might dry up. It began exploring peacetime uses of atomic energy, but abandoned the effort when cold-war military spending took off.

General welfare is a general condition - maybe sound currency is general welfare, maybe markets, maybe judicial system, maybe a national defense, but this is specific welfare. This justifies the whole welfare state - the military industrial complex, the welfare to foreigners, the welfare state that imprisons our people and impoverishes our people and gives us our recession.

At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again increasing, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline that this threat must be met through the broadest possible international cooperation. This principle finds its clearest expression today in the work of the IAEA and its Director General. In the nuclear non-proliferation regime, it is the IAEA which ensures that nuclear energy is not misused for military purposes, and the Director General has stood out as an unafraid advocate of new measures to strengthen that regime.

In 2012, General Dempsey, General Petraeus directed the CIA, Secretary Panetta and Secretary Clinton recommended to the president to robustly arm and train the Syrian moderates. He says no. In 2013, conduct a military strike, same national security team, against the Assad regime because he violated the chemical red line. He says no.

Russia has had very aggressive military exercises. They've practiced mock nuclear attacks on Warsaw. Russian bombers practiced attacking strategic military targets in Sweden. The military aggression gets everybody nervous.