Best Military Quotes

Starting a collection of relevant and appealing military quotes. Will keep adding as and when I come across them. Suggestions are always welcome.

8.On Chinese Strategy

 “If chess is about the decisive battle, Wei Qi is about the protracted campaign, The chess player aims for total victory. The Wei Qi player seeks relative advantage”.  

Mr Henry Kissinger on China

7. On Leadership

“The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”

Colin Powel

6. On Motivation

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

G.K. Chesterton

5. On Delegation

”Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

General George S. Patton, U.S. Army

4. On Deterrence

“The military might of a country represents its national strength. Only when it builds up its military might in every way can it develop into a thriving country.”

Kim Jong-un

3. On Honoring Soldiers

“In times of war and not before,
God and the soldier we adore.
But in times of peace and all things righted,
God is forgotten and the soldier slighted.”

Rudyard Kipling

2. Contributed by Lt Gen G Katoch

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee

1. On Fighter Pilots

“Fighter pilot is an attitude. It is cockiness. It is aggressiveness. It is self-confidence. It is a streak of rebelliousness, and it is competitiveness. But there’s something else – there’s a spark. There’s a desire to be good. To do well; in the eyes of your peers, and in your own mind.”

– Robin Olds, Fighter Pilot