Spoken by George C. Scott in the film Patton.
Variants:
No man ever won a war by dying for his country. Wars were won by making the other poor bastard die for his.
You don't win a war by dying for your country. You win a war by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his.
War is not meant to be you dying for your country-it is by making the other bastard die for his.
Misattributed
“Poor Hayduke: won all his arguments but lost his immortal soul.”
The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975)
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Edward Abbey 146
American author and essayist 1927–1989Related quotes
Source: Across the Plains (1892), Ch. VII, The Lantern-Bearers.
Context: The observer (poor soul, with his documents!) is all abroad. For to look at the man is but to court deception. We shall see the trunk from which he draws his nourishment; but he himself is above and abroad in the green dome of foliage, hummed through by winds and nested in by nightingales. And the true realism were that of the poets, to climb up after him like a squirrel, and catch some glimpse of the heaven for which he lives. And, the true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all. In the joy of the actors lies the sense of any action.
“All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.”
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 560.
On Evo Morales, the head of state of Bolivia, as found in the International Herald Tribune. http://web.archive.org/web/20060221235710/http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/12/news/bolivia.php
The War on Drugs
Variant: All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield.
Source: Paradise Lost