George S. Patton: Quotes about men

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.

Speech to the Third Army (1944)
Context: Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight.

Speech to the Third Army (1944)
Context: When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either. We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do!

This is almost always attributed to US Ambassador Francis Meehan http://www.nndb.com/people/060/000121694/, though without citations, and only very rarely to Patton.
Misattributed

Speech to the Third Army (1944)

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.

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

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

Cavalry Journal (September 1933)

notes on combat written by General Patton were published in Tactical and Technical Trends, No. 30, July 29, 1943. http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/ttt09/patton-notes-on-combat.html

Though Patton commissioned this prayer and ordered 250,000 copies of it printed with his signature, it was actually composed by Chief Chaplain James H. O'Neill http://www.pattonhq.com/prayer.html Review of the News (6 October 1971)
Misattributed

Speech to the Third Army (1944)

Source: George S. Patton's speech to the Third Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton%27s_speech_to_the_Third_Army

Speech to the Third Army (1944)

That, like everything else in this Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose is alertness. Alertness must be bred into every soldier. I don't give a fuck for a man who's not always on his toes. You men are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready for what's to come.
Speech to the Third Army (1944)