“It is the cold glitter of the attacker's eye not the point of the questing bayonet that breaks the line.”

—  George S. Patton

Quoted in How We Are Changed by War: A Study of Letters and Diaries from Colonial Conflicts to Operation Iraqi Freedom (2010) http://books.google.com/books?id=h-Fens34378C&pg=PA70 by D.C. Gill, p. 70

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 "It is the cold glitter of the attacker's eye not the point of the questing bayonet that breaks the line." by George S. Patton?
George S. Patton photo
George S. Patton 77
United States Army general 1885–1945

Related quotes

Ferdinand Foch photo

“The laurels of victory are at the point of the enemy bayonets.”

Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist

Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 105
Context: The laurels of victory are at the point of the enemy bayonets. They must be plucked there; they must be carried by a hand-to-hand fight if one really means to conquer.

W.B. Yeats photo

“Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Lapis Lazuli, st. 5
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Bernard Cornwell photo

“This was the might of France, the pride of France, the tactic of the world's first conscript army, and this column, Clausel's counter-attack, ignored cold mathematical logic. It was not defeated by the line.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, p. 253
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

Alexander Suvorov photo

“The three military arts. First - Apprehension, how to arrange things in camp, how to march, how to attack, pursue, and strike; for taking up position, final judgement of the enemy's strength, for estimating his intentions. Second - Quickness… This quickness doesn't weary the men. The enemy doesn't expect us, reckons us 100 versts away, and if a long way off to begin with - 200, 300 or more - suddenly we're on him, like snow on the head; his head spins. Attack with what comes up, with what God sends; the cavalry to begin, smash, strike, cut off, don't let slip, hurra! Brothers do miracles! Third - Attack. Leg supports leg. Arm strengthens arm; many men will die in the volley; the enemy has the same weapons, but he doesn't know the Russian bayonet. Extend the line - attack at once with cold steel; extend the line without stopping… the Cossacks to get through everywhere… In two lines is strength; in three, half as much again; the first breaks, the second drives into heaps, the third overthrows.”

Alexander Suvorov (1730–1800) Russian military commander

From "The Science of Victory," 1796.

Cassandra Clare photo

“and don’t start your own line of glitter and try to sell it at Sephora.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Janet Fitch photo

“Her hatred glittered irresistibly. I could see it, the jewel, it was sapphire, it was the cold lakes of Norway.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Ronald Reagan photo

“I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at the point of a bayonet, if necessary.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

As quoted in The Los Angeles Times (20 October 1965)
1960s

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

"Break, Break, Break" (1842), st. 1

“For this, to draw a right line from every point, to every point, follows the definition, which says, that a line is the flux of a point, and a right line an indeclinable and inflexible flow.”

Proclus (412–485) Greek philosopher

Book III. Concerning Petitions and Axioms.
The Philosophical and Mathematical Commentaries of Proclus on the First Book of Euclid's Elements Vol. 2 (1789)

Mark W. Clark photo

“The general seeking to break an enemy defense line and destroy his forces must decide just when and how to strike and precisely to what extent he dare weaken one sector of his front in order to mass overpowering strength at the main point of attack. He, too, must take a chance, although, in the stilted phraseology of military communiqués, he calls it a "calculated risk".”

Mark W. Clark (1896–1984) American general

Source: Calculated Risk (1950), p. 1
Context: A soldier's life in combat is an endless series of decisions that mean success or failure, and perhaps life or death for himself or his comrades. The rifleman crawling through the rubble of a bombed-out street must decide on the best moment to escape enemy fire as he dodges from one doorway to the next. He must take a chance. The general seeking to break an enemy defense line and destroy his forces must decide just when and how to strike and precisely to what extent he dare weaken one sector of his front in order to mass overpowering strength at the main point of attack. He, too, must take a chance, although, in the stilted phraseology of military communiqués, he calls it a "calculated risk".

Related topics