Samuel Johnson

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity… The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.

The Supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things – the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

We are not retreating – we are advancing in another Direction

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!

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

World War II was fought for the abolition of racial exclusiveness, equality of nations and the integrity of their territories, liberation of enslaved nations and restoration of their sovereign rights, the right of every nation to arrange its affairs as it wishes, economic aid to nations that have suffered and assistance to them in attaining their material welfare, restoration of democratic liberties, and destruction of the Hitlerite regime.

You don’t win wars by dying for your country you win wars by making the other son of a b*tch die for his.

We had 10 years after the Cold War to build a new world order and yet we squandered them. The United States cannot tolerate anyone acting independently. Every US president has to have a war.

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

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

When we went into World War II, I was a tractor driver then. I drove tractors on the plantation. So when they start calling people my age, 18, up, I was one they called.

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.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

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.