“Actually, I think it's more immoral to use less force than necessary, than it is to use more.”

—  Curtis LeMay

if you use less force, you kill off more of humanity in the long run, because you are merely protracting the struggle.
Mission with LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 382.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Actually, I think it's more immoral to use less force than necessary, than it is to use more." by Curtis LeMay?
Curtis LeMay photo
Curtis LeMay 13
American general and politician 1906–1990

Related quotes

Curtis LeMay photo

“Actually, I think it's more immoral to use less force than necessary, than it is to use more. if you use less force, you kill off more of humanity in the long run, because you are merely protracting the struggle.”

Curtis LeMay (1906–1990) American general and politician

Mission with LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 382.

Sigmund Freud photo

“Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis
Georges Bataille photo

“Nothing is more necessary or stronger in us than rebellion.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge

Jane Austen photo

“Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do. In my opinion, nature has given them so much, that they never find it necessary to use more than half.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

“The wielders of power did not speak for it, nor did they naturally serve it. Their interest was to use and develop power, no less natural and necessary than liberty but more dangerous.”

Bernard Bailyn book The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

Source: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967), Chapter III, POWER AND LIBERTY A THEORY OF POLITICS, p. 59.

Jon Kabat-Zinn photo

“Maybe the fear is that
we are less than
we think we are,
when the
actuality of it
is that we are much much more.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Source: Arriving at Your Own Door: 108 Lessons in Mindfulness

Sarah Palin photo

“I think if enough of us rise up and say, ‘No, enough is enough,’ there are more of us than there are of them.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

"Sarah Palin says she’ll get Covid vaccine ‘over my dead body’" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/21/sarah-palin-covid-vaccine-coronavirus, The Guardian, December 21 2021

Michael Mullen photo

“Let us all be men and women in full. Let us expect from ourselves more than we think we can give, more than we think we can do and more than we think we already know.”

Michael Mullen (1946) U.S. Navy admiral and 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

To Army War College Graduates, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, 7 June 2008 http://www.jcs.mil/chairman/speeches/07JUN08_ArmyWarCollege_Commencement.html, CJCS.

Menander photo

“To say more than what's necessary
I don't think is appropriate for a man.”

Menander Dyskolos

Knemon.
Variant translation: I don't hold with people saying more than they need; but there is one thing more, my child, that I'd like you to know. I just want to say a few things to you about life, and the way people behave. You know, if we were all kind to one another, there'd be no need for law courts, there'd be no arresting people and putting them into prison, and there would be no more war. Everyone would have his little bit, and be content. But maybe you like modern ways better? Well, live that way, then! This difficult and bad-tempered old man will soon be out of the way.
As translated by William Geoffrey Arnott http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/menander.htm.
Dyskolos
Context: To say more than what's necessary
I don't think is appropriate for a man. Except know this, child —
for I wish to tell you a little about me and my character —
if everyone were like me there wouldn't be law courts,
and they wouldn't take them away to prisons,
and there wouldn't be wars, but having goods in measure each man would be happy.
But perhaps those things are more pleasing. Act that way.
This difficult and grouchy old man will be out of your way.

Related topics