George S. Patton: Trending quotes (page 2)

Speech to the Third Army (1944)
Context: Every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base.

Letter to Frederick Ayers (5 May 1943), published in The Patton Papers 1940-1945 (1996) edited by Martin Blumenson, p. 243
Context: It is rather interesting how you get used to death. I have had to go to inspect the troops in which case you run a very good chance — or I should say a reasonable chance — of being bombed or shot at from the air, and shelled or shot at from the ground.
I had the same experience every day which is for the first half-hour the palms of my hands sweat and I feel depressed. Then, if one hits near you, it seems to break the spell and you don't notice them anymore. Going back in the evening over the same ground and at a time when the shelling and bombing are usually heavier, you become so used to it you never think about it.

Through A Glass, Darkly (1918)
Context: So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me. And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o'er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought. So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.

Stanza 1 of "Absolute War" a poem composed by Patton in July 1944, during Operation Cobra as quoted in The Patton Papers 1940-1945 (1996) edited by Martin Blumenson p. 492
Context: Now in war we are confronted with conditions which are strange
If we accept them we will never win.
Since being realistic, as in mundane combats fistic
We will get a bloody nose and that's a sin.

Indicating some of his speculations about reincarnation, in a letter to his mother from Chamlieu, France during World War I (20 November 1917)
Context: I wonder if I could have been here before as I drive up the Roman road the Theater seems familiar — perhaps I headed a legion up that same white road... I passed a chateau in ruins which I possibly helped escalade in the middle ages. There is no proof nor yet any denial. We were, We are, and we will be.

Remark to his nephew about his copious profanity, quoted in The Unknown Patton (1983) by Charles M. Province, p. 184
Context: When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can't run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn't fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag. … As for the types of comments I make, sometimes I just, By God, get carried away with my own eloquence.

Through A Glass, Darkly (1918)
Context: Through the travail of the ages,
Midst the pomp and toil of war,
Have I fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star. In the form of many people
In all panoplies of time
Have I seen the luring vision
Of the Victory Maid, sublime.

As quoted in "The True Story of The Patton Prayer" by James H. O'Neill in Review of the News (6 October 1971) http://www.pattonhq.com/prayer.html
Context: There are three ways that men get what they want; by planning, by working, and by praying. Any great military operation takes careful planning, or thinking. Then you must have well-trained troops to carry it out: that's working. But between the plan and the operation there is always an unknown. That unknown spells defeat or victory, success or failure. It is the reaction of the actors to the ordeal when it actually comes. Some people call that getting the breaks; I call it God. God has His part, or margin in everything, That's where prayer comes in.

Speech to the Third Army (1944)

Speech at the Copley Plaza Hotel, Boston, Massachusetts (7 June 1945), quoted in Patton : Ordeal and Triumph (1970) by Ladislas Farago

War As I Knew It (1947) "Reflections and Suggestions"

Quoted in 50 Military Leaders Who Changed the World‎ (2007) by William Weir, p. 173
Unsourced variant: Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man. Anything built by man, can be destroyed by him.

As quoted in Textbook of Phacoemulsification (1988) by William F. Maloney and Lincoln Grindle, p. 79

War as I knew it (1947), as cited in Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations, By Hugh Rawson, Margaret Miner, p. 258 https://books.google.com/books?id=whg05Z4Nwo0C&pg=PA258(via books.google.com).

Mike Province, founder and president of The Patton Society http://www.pattonhq.com/ calls this an urban legend and in the Texas A&M Battalion (2 October 2006) http://media.www.thebatt.com/media/storage/paper657/news/2006/10/02/Aggielife/Traditionally.Speaking-2319058.shtml?sourcedomain=www.thebatt.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com is quoted as saying "I've gotten e-mails and questions regarding that quote for several years... People will use it with Texas Aggies, The Citadel, Virginia Military Institute and even Clemson. All of these schools want to be linked to Patton... Anything is possible... I honestly don't believe he said it, because I've heard too many people say that he said it about their school. But if anyone out there can find proof that he said it, I'd love to hear about it and get it out there." If any school has a claim, it is the Virginia Military Institute; Patton's grandfather, grand-uncles, and his father all were VMI graduates. Patton himself spent a year at VMI before going to West Point. VMI has many George Patton relics donated by his family in its museum. Please also note that the photo of Patton as a cadet has him wearing a VMI coatee and cap.
Misattributed

As quoted in After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Post War Germany (1997) by Michael Brenner

Spoken by George C. Scott in the film Patton, portraying his defeat of what he thought were forces under the command of Erwin Rommel; however, the book portrayed in that film is purely fictional — Rommel never finished the book he was writing on tank warfare, but did write a book on his experiences in WW I. It was widely read, regarded a classic of modern military tactics, and published in abbreviated form for study by US army officers.
Misattributed

On the gasoline supplies for his tanks, as quoted in The Struggle for Europe‎ (1972) by Chester Wilmot, p. 473