Douglas MacArthur

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

There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.

Americans never quit.

We are not retreating – we are advancing in another Direction

You are remembered for the rules you break.

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!

Among the calamities of war, may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages.

Wars are necessary to teach us lessons we seem unable to learn any other way.

We are not retreating – we are advancing in another Direction

Give me ten thousand Filipino soldiers and I will conquer the world.

War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.

I sincerely want peace, not because I lack resources for war, but because I hate bloodshed.

That’s what an army is – a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.

No one ever wins a war.

Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.

It is a sweet and seemly thing to die for one’s country.

I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.

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.

War is not a matter for the professional pacifist or militarist. It is for the unprofessional people. They finance and fight it, they bear its losses. Therefore, they should have the deciding voice concerning it. To do this, they require all the information upon which decisions are made. They should know in a difference, whether it is soluble by rational intelligence, or inevitable by force. Not once in a thousand instances would our people (this may not be true of all peoples, however) approve an offensive war. Never would they be lax in defensive action. For this is their country. However, most of their enemies are within it.

The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash.

Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.