Quotes about soldier
page 12

Yuri Butusov, journalist. Paris Opera singer Vasyl Slipak shot dead by Russian sniper in Donbas // UaPosition. - 2016. - June 29. http://uaposition.com/latest-news/ukrainian-opera-singer-shot-dead-by-enemy-sniper-in-donbas/

“Yesterday, when asked about reparations, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell offered a familiar reply: America should not be held liable for something that happened 150 years ago, since none of us currently alive are responsible… This rebuttal proffers a strange theory of governance, that American accounts are somehow bound by the lifetime of its generations. But well into this century, the United States was still paying out pensions to the heirs of Civil War soldiers. We honor treaties that date back some 200 years, despite no one being alive who signed those treaties… But we are American citizens, and thus bound to a collective enterprise that extends beyond our individual and personal reach.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975) writer, journalist, and educator

Ta-Nehisi Coates Makes the Case for Reparations at Historic Congressional Hearing, Democracy Now (20 June 2019)

War, Personality

“I am a soldier. I get orders. I execute them.”

Dietrich von Choltitz (1894–1966) German general

To Raoul Nordling The Race to Liberate Paris, warfarehistorynetwork.com https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/the-race-to-liberate-paris/

“Gentlemen, you are the leaders of the best soldiers in the world. I will give you five or six of my own men; we will cover your back with sustained barrage fire to protect you while you cross the rue de Rivoli. All you need to do is force open a door to fight your way to the tapestry.”

Dietrich von Choltitz (1894–1966) German general

To two SS-Manns about retrieving the Bayeux Tapestry, 21 August 1944 Edsel, Robert M. (2013-07-01). The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History https://books.google.pl/books?id=hBoh9SAKOVgC&pg=PT91&lpg=PT91&source=bl&ots=Rp0jmiHzUw&sig=j149WGdxMIHBFT-B5RvkcOpkJzc&hl=pl&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjylKfG4tTfAhUP3qQKHeRjCA8Q6AEwBHoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false. Random House. ISBN 9781448183159

Men, World, Way, Fight

“Ach! If Hitler had given me an immoral order I would have refused. Think of it! To break teeth out of a dead body! Think of it! Why, if I had been only a simple soldier, I would not have obeyed. I would have said that it was against my religious conviction. That dog Pohl knew all about it.”

Oswald Pohl (1892–1951) Head of the SS Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt

Hjalmar Schacht to Leon Goldensohn, June 9, 1946.

Dogs, Thinking, Dead

“In case of a resumption of hostilities we are militarily in a position to reconquer, in the east, the province of Posen and to defend our frontier. In the west, we cannot, in view of the numerical superiority of the Entente and its ability to surround us on both flanks, count on repelling successfully a determined attack of our enemies. A favorable outcome of our operations is therefore very doubtful, but as a soldier I would rather perish in honor than sign a humiliating peace.”

Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and president of Germany

Letter to Friedrich Ebert after the Treaty of Versailles was presented to Germany (17 June 1919), quoted in Andreas Dorpalen, Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic (Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 39 and John W. Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918-1945 (London: Macmillan, 1964), p. 52
Chief of the German General Staff

Hostility, Peace

“While thus bamboozling the masses the capitalistic knights of plunder continue to perfect their mechanism of power. … They command armies of soldiers, gendarmes, policemen, spies, judges, prison-keepers, toll-keepers, tax collectors, executors, etc.”

Johann Most (1846–1906) German-American anarchist politician, newspaper editor, and orator

The Beast of Property (1884)

Perfection

“Few men have had their elasticity so thoroughly put to the proof as Caesar-- the sole creative genius produced by Rome, and the last produced by the ancient world, which accordingly moved on in the path that he marked out for it until its sun went down. Sprung from one of the oldest noble families of Latium--which traced back its lineage to the heroes of the Iliad and the kings of Rome, and in fact to the Venus-Aphrodite common to both nations--he spent the years of his boyhood and early manhood as the genteel youth of that epoch were wont to spend them. He had tasted the sweetness as well as the bitterness of the cup of fashionable life, had recited and declaimed, had practised literature and made verses in his idle hours, had prosecuted love-intrigues of every sort, and got himself initiated into all the mysteries of shaving, curls, and ruffles pertaining to the toilette-wisdom of the day, as well as into the still more mysterious art of always borrowing and never paying. But the flexible steel of that nature was proof against even these dissipated and flighty courses; Caesar retained both his bodily vigour and his elasticity of mind and of heart unimpaired. In fencing and in riding he was a match for any of his soldiers, and his swimming saved his life at Alexandria; the incredible rapidity of his journeys, which usually for the sake of gaining time were performed by night--a thorough contrast to the procession-like slowness with which Pompeius moved from one place to another-- was the astonishment of his contemporaries and not the least among the causes of his success. The mind was like the body. His remarkable power of intuition revealed itself in the precision and practicability of all his arrangements, even where he gave orders without having seen with his own eyes. His memory was matchless, and it was easy for him to carry on several occupations simultaneously with equal self-possession. Although a gentleman, a man of genius, and a monarch, he had still a heart. So long as he lived, he cherished the purest veneration for his worthy mother Aurelia (his father having died early); to his wives and above all to his daughter Julia he devoted an honourable affection, which was not without reflex influence even on political affairs. With the ablest and most excellent men of his time, of high and of humbler rank, he maintained noble relations of mutual fidelity, with each after his kind. As he himself never abandoned any of his partisans after the pusillanimous and unfeeling manner of Pompeius, but adhered to his friends--and that not merely from calculation--through good and bad times without wavering, several of these, such as Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Matius, gave, even after his death, noble testimonies of their attachment to him.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol.4. Part 2.
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2

Love, Life, Death, Wisdom

“The press to-day is an army with carefully organized arms and branches, with journalists as officers, and readers as soldiers. But here, as in every army, the soldier obeys blindly, and war-aims and operation-plans change without his knowledge. The reader neither knows, nor is allowed to know, the purposes for which he is used, nor even the role that he is to play. A more appalling caricature of freedom of thought cannot be imagined. Formerly a man did not dare to think freely. Now he dares, but cannot; his will to think is only a willingness to think to order, and this is what he feels as his liberty.”

Oswald Spengler book The Decline of the West

Vol. II, Alfred A. Knopf, 1928, p. 462 https://archive.org/stream/Decline-Of-The-West-Oswald-Spengler/Decline_Of_The_West#page/n931/mode/2up The Decline of the West (1918, 1923)

War, Feeling, Imagination, Knowledge

“Young soldiers had a lot of expectations and fantasies about how it would be and what they would do and feel. Invariably wrong, those expectations.”

Steve Perry (1947) American writer

Source: The Ramal Extraction (2012), Chapter 11

Feeling

“Concerning Lu-Enki, the ruler of the province of Zimudar, he should come to you, and should bring with him 60 troops. And as for you, with the soldiers who are under your authority, get the trench dug! So as not to change the attitude of the province, you people are not to release the workers while the land has not yet been secured. Let messengers bring me news about those eastern provinces. This is urgent!”

Shu-Sin Sumerian king

To his general Sharrum-bani, Letter from Shu-Suen to Sharrum-bani about digging a trench http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section3/tr3116.htm, Correspondence of the Kings of Ur, Old Babylonian period, ca. 1800-1600 BCE, at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature.

People, Change

“He was true soldier without a gun. Although life had played many tricks with him, he always overcame them.”

Sunil Dutt (1929–2005) Hindi film actor

Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh in page=69

Life

“As a soldier who has spent a quarter of his life in the study of the science of arms, let me tell you I went into the British Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I believe now that if you prepare thoroughly and efficiently for war, you get war.”

Frederick B. Maurice (1871–1951) British Army general and historian

Speaking in Carnegie Hall, New York City, on 4 April 1919.
[New York Times, 5 April 1919, 13, Maurice Criticises Peace Conferees, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B00E6DC1E3BEE3ABC4D53DFB2668382609EDE]

Life, War, Peace, Study

“Field Marshal Model was a bold, inexhaustible soldier, who knew the front well and who won the confidence of his men by his habitual disregard for his personal safety. He had no time for lazy or incompetent subordinates. He carried out his intentions in a most determined fashion. He was the best possible man to perform the fantastically difficult task of reconstructing a line in centre of the Eastern Front.”

Walter Model (1891–1945) German field marshal

"Panzer Leader" - by Heinz Guderian - 1952

Men, Confidence, Fashion, Time

“Kurt Student was a German professional soldier, typical of the best of his kind, totally devoted to his calling and to his country, though by no means in full sympathy with Nazi leadership.”

Kurt Student (1890–1978) German Luftwaffe general during World War II

Correlli Barnett.

Country

“William Mark Felt was a traitor to Nixon and America! What he did caused 53,000 American soldiers to die for nothing in Vietnam!”

W. Mark Felt (1913–2008) Whistleblower who exposed the Watergate scandal

Pat Buchanan on MSNBC (31 May 2005)

“She is a soldier. She will not be defeated.”

Patti Smith (1946) American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist

The Immortals: The First Fifty, Manson, Shirley, Rolling Stone, 2004-04-15, Rolling Stone Issue 946 http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5939214/the_immortals_the_first_fifty,

“This generation of Filipinos fought a foreign power that invaded us. I think all of them are entitled to be buried in the Libingan ng Mga Bayani. Regardless of whether medals or no medals he, as a soldier who fought that war, is entitled to be buried in Libingan, and I am not denigrating the people who are denying that right or objecting to it. I don’t think they ever saw the muzzles of the guns of a foreign enemy and confronted them.”

Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989) former President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, Enrile: Marcos, as soldier, deserves 'Libingan' burial, Manila Bulletin, April 14, 2011
About

War, People, Thinking

“My faith in human dignity consists in the belief that man is the greatest scamp on earth. Human dignity must be associated with the idea of a scamp and not with that of an obedient, disciplined and regimented soldier.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 12

Faith, Idea

“In the US. Infantry Manual published during World War II, the soldier was told what to do if a live grenade fell into the trench where he and others were sitting: to wrap himself around the grenade so as to at least save the others.”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

If no one "volunteered," all would be killed, and there were only a few seconds to decide who would be the hero.
Anatol Rapoport (1988), quoted in: William Poundstone (2011) Prisoner's Dilemma. p. 203
1970s and later

War, World

“The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and unarmed. It is the very essence and reason for his being. When he violates this sacred trust, he not only profanes his entire cult but threatens the very fabric of international society. The traditions of fighting men are long and honorable. They are based upon the noblest of human traits—sacrifice.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

From a 1946 statement by MacArthur confirming the death sentence imposed by a U. S. military commission on Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita, as quoted in MacArthur's Reminscences (McGraw-Hill, 1964) p. 295. Also used as the epigraph to Telford Taylor's Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy (New York: Bantam, 1970).
1940s

Men, Fight

“The Mexicans were badly commanded, and there was very little hard fighting during that war, at least nothing to be compared with what was seen afterward in our own. Our soldiers had only to show the bayonet at the Mexicans and they would run. As to the bowie-knife, I do not think one was used during the war. It was a pity to see good troops used as the Mexican soldiers were in those campaigns. I do not think a more incompetent set of officers ever existed than those who commanded the Mexicans. With an able general the Mexicans would make a good fight, for they are a courageous people. But I do not suppose any war was ever fought with reference to which so many romances were invented as the war in Mexico.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

Source: 1870s, Around the World with General Grant (1879), pp. 162–163

War, People, Making love, Courage

“With a soldier the flag is paramount. I know the struggle with my conscience during the Mexican War. I have never altogether forgiven myself for going into that. I had very strong opinions on the subject. I do not think there was ever a more wicked war than that waged by the United States on Mexico. I thought so at the time, when I was a youngster, only I had not moral courage enough to resign. I had taken an oath to serve eight years, unless sooner discharged, and I considered my supreme duty was to my flag. I had a horror of the Mexican War, and I have always believed that it was on our part most unjust. The wickedness was not in the way our soldiers conducted it, but in the conduct of our government in declaring war. The troops behaved well in Mexico, and the government acted handsomely about the peace. We had no claim on Mexico. Texas had no claim beyond the Nueces River, and yet we pushed on to the Rio Grande and crossed it. I am always ashamed of my country when I think of that invasion. Once in Mexico, however, and the people, those who had property, were our friends. We could have held Mexico, and made it a permanent section of the Union with the consent of all classes whose consent was worth having. Overtures were made to Scott and Worth to remain in the country with their armies.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

On the Mexican–American War, p. 448 https://archive.org/details/aroundworldgrant02younuoft/page/n4 1870s, Around the World with General Grant (1879)

War, People, Peace, Way

“The Mexicans are a good people. They live on little and work hard. They suffer from the influence of the Church, which, while I was in Mexico at least, was as bad as could be. The Mexicans were good soldiers, but badly commanded. The country is rich, and if the people could be assured a good government, they would prosper. See what we have made of Texas and California — empires. There are the same materials for new empires in Mexico. I have always had a deep interest in Mexico and her people, and have always wished them well. I suppose the fact that I served there as a young man, and the impressions the country made upon my young mind, have a good deal to do with this. When I was in London, talking with Lord Beaconsfield, he spoke of Mexico. He said he wished to heaven we had taken the country, that England would not like anything better than to see the United States annex it. I suppose that will be the future of the country. Now that slavery is out of the way there could be no better future for Mexico than absorption in the United States. But it would have to come, as San Domingo tried to come, by the free will of the people. I would not fire a gun to annex territory. I consider it too great a privilege to belong to the United States for us to go around gunning for new territories. Then the question of annexation means the question of suffrage, and that becomes more and more serious every day with us. That is one of the grave problems of our future.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

On Mexicans and Mexico's future, pp. 448–449 https://archive.org/details/aroundworldgrant02younuoft/page/n4 1870s, Around the World with General Grant (1879)

Bad luck, People, Way, Question

“War is detestable and not to be desired by a nation’, adding, 'It falls not so heavily upon soldiers – it is our calling; but its horrors alight upon the poor, upon the miserable, upon the unhappy, upon those who feel the expense and the suffering, but have not the glory.”

Charles James Napier (1782–1853) Commander-in-Chief in British India

Shadwell, The Life of Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde. Vol. I, 108.

War, Feeling, Suffering

“He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of thirty-one and he's only seventeen
He's been a soldier for a thousand yearsHe's a Catholic, a Hindu, an athiest, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
. . . He's the universal soldier and he really is to blame”

Buffy Sainte-Marie (1941) Canadian musician

"Universal Soldier", from It's My Way! (1964)

Universe, Fight

“If it should happen some day that a man, having in his hand the five hundred thousand officeholders who constitute the government, and the four hundred thousand soldiers composing the army, if it should happen that this man should tear up the Constitution, should violate every law, break every oath, trample upon every right, commit every crime, do you know what your irremovable magistrates, instructors in the right, and guardians of the law, would do? They would hold their tongues.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Napoleon the Little (1852), Book VIII, IV
Napoleon the Little (1852)

Law, Tear

“Alas! of what is France thinking? Of a surety, we must awake this slumbering nation, we must take it by the arm, we must shake it, we must speak to it; we must scour the fields, enter the villages, go into the barracks, speak to the soldier who no longer knows what he is doing, speak to the labourer who has in his cabin an engraving of the Emperor, and who, for that reason, votes for everything they ask; we must remove the radiant phantom that dazzles their eyes; this whole situation is nothing but a huge and deadly joke.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Book I, VI
Napoleon the Little (1852)

Thinking

“We must no longer have a pacific conception of peace. In the Middle Ages it was otherwise. The existence of the individual had no exaggerated importance. Pacifist literature depicts death on the field of battle as an unnatural death because it does not understand the ancient Germanic horror of death on a bed, and arteriosclerosis appears to it more virile than a bullet. Pacifists dwell on the horrors of the war dead as if a peace corpse were more aesthetic. The representatives of the national revolution are men and soldiers who are physically and morally warriors.”

Franz von Papen (1879–1969) German chancellor

Speech to the Stalhelm in Münster (13 May 1933), quoted in Frederick Schuman, Hitler and the Nazi Dictatorship (London: Hale, 1936), pp. 345-346
1930s

Death, Men, War, Age

“I suppose my determination to be a soldier stems from that date. I mean the real thing, not the parades and the uniforms and the glamour, but the logistics, the offensive advantage, the speed and surprise—the power. A better-prepared, stronger, tougher, faster, meaner son-of-a-bitch than any who came through that door.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 3 (pp. 43-44)

Bitch, Speed

“Even soldiers in battle have to be brought to a special state of mental excitement to shoot total strangers.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Falling Free (1988), Chapter 8 (p. 143)

“I sang it about soldiers, then, later, about gay men. It touches me deeply every time. I used to perform this song at Mr Henry’s and people would be totally silent. I knew it moved them.”

Roberta Flack (1937) American singer

On the song “Ballad of the Sad Young Men” in “Roberta Flack: 'My music is my expression of what I feel in a moment'” https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/21/roberta-flack-interview-music-grammys in The Guardian (2020 Jan 21)

Men, People, Time

“Though I have been trained as a soldier, and participated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword. I look forward to an epoch when a court, recognized by all nations, will settle international differences, instead of keeping large standing armies as they do in Europe.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

As quoted in "International Arbitration" by W. H. Dellenback in The Commencement Annual, University of Michigan (30 June 1892) and in A Half Century of International Problems: A Lawyer's Views (1954) by Frederic René Coudert, p. 180

Way, Time, Drawing, Training

“The winds of war came sweeping cruel,
The flower would not cry,
Oh, how it broke the freeman's heart,
To see the first rose die.
Some soldiers plucked the garden's joy, And left a burning mark,
Upon the silver petalled bloom,
Now fettered in he dark.”

Bobby Sands (1954–1981) Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army

"Comrades in the Dark"
Poetry, Miscellaneous poems

War, Flowers, Heart, Joy

“You think like a soldier, m’lady.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Kly sounded approving.
Cordelia wrinkled her brow in dismay. What an appalling compliment. The last thing she wanted was to start thinking like a soldier, playing their game by their rules. The hallucinatory military worldview was horribly infectious, though, immersed in it as she was now.

Chapter 13 (p. 458)
Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

Thinking

“Russia has always respected the bravery and heroism of the Polish people, soldiers and officers, who stood up first against Nazism in 1939.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

On the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II, 1 September 2009 https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/world/europe/02russia.html 2006 - 2010

People

“When the walls of the mighty fortress of Brahminism are encircled, undermined, and finally stormed by the soldiers of the Cross, the victory of Christianity must be signal and complete.”

Monier Monier-Williams (1819–1899) Linguist and dictionary compiler

Modern India and the Indians, 1878. in Shourie, Arun (1994). Missionaries in India: Continuities, changes, dilemmas. New Delhi : Rupa & Co, 1994

Victory

“A mercenary who can’t honor his contract when it’s rough as well as smooth is a thug, not a soldier.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Chapter 13 (pp. 221-222) Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)

“To kill a man, it helps if you can first take away his face. A neat mental trick. Handy for a soldier.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Chapter 2 (pp. 29-30) Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)

Help

“An artist is the magician put among men to gratify — capriciously — their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist's touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships — and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes — husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer.”

Tom Stoppard Travesties

Joyce, Act I
Stoppard called this "the most important" speech in the play
Source: Travesties (1974)

Men, War, Art, Lovers

“The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
⁠Of men-at-arms who come to pray. The roses blossom white and red
⁠On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
⁠And martial music cleaves the sky. Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
⁠They kept the faith and fought the fight.
Through flying lead and crimson steel
⁠They plunged for Freedom and the Righteousness. May we, their grateful children, learn
⁠Their strength, who lie beneath this sod,
Who went through fire and death to earn
⁠At last the accolade of God.In shining rank on rank arrayed
They march, the legions of the Lord;
He is their Captain unafraid,
The Prince of Peace . . . Who brought a sword.”

Joyce Kilmer Trees and Other Poems

"Memorial Day"; this poem was later published in The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920)
Trees and Other Poems (1914)

Death, Men, War, Children

“The herdist instinct is furthermore not only personal, in the sense that it clamors for a personal collectivism; it creates also a longing and desire for the visual or acoustic contemplation of identitarian or uniformistic phenomena. The true herdist, the man truly dominated by that inferior instinct, will not only rejoice in marching amongst twenty thousand uniformly clad soldiers, all stepping rhythmically in one direction, but he will find an almost equal gratification in contemplating the show from a balcony. He will not only be happy in sitting amidst two hundred other bespectacled businessmen, drinking beer and humming one chant in unison, but the aspect of a skyscraper with a thousand identical windows will probably impress him more than a picture by Botticelli or Zurbarán.”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Pg 16
The Menace of the Herd (1943)

Happiness, Drink, Beer, Sense

“I understand why some men become soldiers: to protect the nation and all that. But a whole race of people living to be soldiers seems … unhealthy.”

David Gemmell book Legend

ibid
Drenai series, Legend, Pt 1: Against the Horde

Men, People, Understanding

“I see the nations of the world arming in ways that have never before been known in the modern world. I am not speaking of new forms of poison gas, heavier or swifter bombing planes, or parachutes to land brigades of soldiers… What is revolutionary is that the minds of men, women and children are being deliberately trained, directed, distorted, by every conceivable instrument of education and propaganda, to make them tolerant of war, receptive of war, prepared for war, lovers of war. The greatest menace in the world today is not poison gas. There are gas masks against that. The menace is poisoned words, poisoned ideas.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
pp. 33-34

Women, Men, War, Children

“Soldiers of the Reich! This day, you are to take part in an offensive of such importance that the whole future of the war may depend on its outcome. More than anything else, your victory will show the whole world that resistance to the power of the German Army is hopeless.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

In a message to German soldiers at the start of the Battle of Kursk, 5 July 1943, as quoted in Kursk by Rupert Matthews
1940s

War, World, Future, Victory

“War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end. To move swiftly, strike vigorously, and secure all the fruits of victory is the secret of successful war.”

Thomas Jackson (1824–1863) Confederate general

As quoted in Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War (1904) by George Francis Robert Henderson http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12233, Ch. 25 : The Soldier and the Man, p. 481 Q him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow…]]

Life, War, Secret, Business

“And therefore just as a brigand caught in broad daylight in the act cannot persuade us that he did not lift his knife in order to rob his victim of his purse, and had no thought of killing him, we too, it would seem, cannot persuade ourselves or others that the soldiers and policemen around us are not to guard us, but only for defense against foreign foes, and to regulate traffic and fetes and reviews; we cannot persuade ourselves and others that we do not know that the men do not like dying of hunger, bereft of the right to gain their subsistence from the earth on which they live; that they do not like working underground, in the water, or in the stifling heat, for ten to fourteen hours a day, at night in factories to manufacture objects for our pleasure. One would imagine it impossible to deny what is so obvious. Yet it is denied.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter XII, Conclusion—Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

Men, Hunger, Pleasure, Imagination

“We know very well that we are only allowed to go on eating our dinner, to finish seeing the new play, or to enjoy to the end the ball, the Christmas fete, the promenade, the races or, the hunt, thanks to the policeman's revolver or the soldier's rifle, which will shoot down the famished outcast who has been robbed of his share, and who looks round the corner with covetous eyes at our pleasures, ready to interrupt them instantly, were not policeman and soldier there prepared to run up at our first call for help.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter XII, Conclusion—Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

Pleasure, Help, Christmas

“We cannot pretend that we do not see the armed policeman who marches up and down beneath our window to guarantee our security while we eat our luxurious dinner, or look at the new piece at the theater, or that we are unaware of the existence of the soldiers who will make their appearance with guns and cartridges directly our property is attacked.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter XII, Conclusion—Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

Making love, Appearance

“My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won: the bravery of my troops hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to win such a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expens of so many gallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune but for the result to the public.”

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) British soldier and statesman

Letter from the field of Waterloo (June 1815), as quoted in Decisive Battles of the World (1899) by Edward Shepherd Creasy. Quoted too in Memorable Battles in English History: Where Fought, why Fought, and Their Results; with the Military Lives of the Commanders by William Henry Davenport Adams; Editor Griffith and Farran, 1863. p. 400.

Evil, Loss, Heart

“It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Wisdom, Freedom, Time, Forgetting

“I believe we must set up three children's colonies, the aim of these colonies is above all to furnish us with soldiers.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Source: King Leopold's Ghost https://vimeo.com/ondemand/kingleopoldsghost Leopold II in a letter to the Congo Governor General: Camille Janssen, 1890.

Children

“There was no readiness for soldiering in this truck, no stern and cocky welcoming of challenges. They sounded - oh, Mother of God - they sounded like children.”

Richard Yates A Good School

Source: Novels, A Good School (1978), p.165 (Ch.7)

God, Children

“A soldier is a man who knows he's being lead to his death but keeps going because it's an order.”

Suraj Sani (1996) Nigerian writer, Spoken word artist

Source: Quotes from Roses in The desert, P. 31.

Death

“The French soldier follows his officers eagerly and willingly into battle, but only so long as these officers are in front of him, and literally lead him on.”

Friedrich von Waldersee (1795–1864) Prussian general (1795-1864)

Quoted by Friedrich Engels in Waldersee über die französische Armee, 1861

“No tyranny can exist without police powers to enforce the ruler's "laws" and punish rebels or free thinkers. The enforcers are called soldiers when sent to other countries and police when operating inside a country. But their function is the same.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Focus Fourteen

Law, Country

“The highest obligation of a soldier is not to die in war but to live through it.”

Suraj Sani (1996) Nigerian writer, Spoken word artist

P. 127. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10937449-the-highest-obligation-of-a-soldier-is-not-to-die

War

“A soldier will return as a hero either with a medal on his chest or a metal in his chest.”

Suraj Sani (1996) Nigerian writer, Spoken word artist

P. 52. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10937446-a-soldier-will-return-as-a-hero-either-with-a

“The losers on the battlefield were not the soldier and his spirit, but the decision-making officials who were supposed to be ready for a possible war, properly organize and wage it.”

Armen Sarkissian (1953) 4th President of Armenia, Member of the Global Leadership Foundation, one of the directors of Eurasia House, phy…

"In an interview with CivilNet" https://www.president.am/en/interviews-and-press-conferences/item/2020/12/11/President-Armen-Sarkissians-interview-with-CivilNet/ (11 December 2020)

War, Decision

“A believer is similar to a restless soldier in an endless battle.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Be like the bravest soldiers in the battlefield, those who never leave their posts assigned by the general.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“If I am in a place where there are enemies, I become a soldier.”

Poemen (340–450) Egyptian monk and desert father

Saying 202

“I am not a soldier, but a preacher and teacher and could offer myself as a religious scholar and orator and I am willing to accept a position as that for the Al Qaeda organization.”

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (1965) One of Al-Qaeda's official spokesmen

Source: Kronos US v Sulaiman Abu Ghayth Statement https://kronosadvisory.com/Kronos_US_v_Sulaiman_Abu_Ghayth_Statement.1.pdf (July 2001)

Teachers

“The key to implementation is people. In a war, even you have a good fighting strategy, history tells us that having soldiers who are brave enough, with skills in shooting and fighting, is what makes the difference.”

Liu Chuanzhi (1944) Chinese businessman

Source: Lenovo Group’s Liu Chuanzhi on ‘Building a Healthy Company’ https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/lenovo-groups-liu-chuanzhi-on-building-a-healthy-company/ in Knowledge @ Wharton (8 July 2009)

War, People, History, Fight

“Our soldier's hands are clean; he knows his hard service ... and has no other aim but the good of the nation.”

Wojciech Jaruzelski (1923–2014) Polish military officer and politician

Excerpts of Martial law speech (14 December 1981)

“Not one American soldier is going to die on that goddamned beach.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

Source: reaction to Churchill's pitch at the Cairo Conference in November 1943 for the Americans to join in an assault on Rhodes. quoted by Correl, John T. “Churchill’s Southern Strategy.” Air Force Magazine, January 2013 https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0113churchill/

“Nobody dies faster than a tired soldier.”

Jim C. Hines (1974) American writer

Source: The Goblin Quest Series, Goblin War (2008), Chapter 14 (p. 276)

“(I'm a soldier) These shoulders hold up so much
They won't budge, I'll never fall or fold up
(I'm a soldier) Even if my collarbones crush or crumble
I will never slip or stumble”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Soldier"
2000s, The Eminem Show (2002)

“Courage, combined with stupidity, does not make successful soldiers.”

Jack Cady (1932–2004) American writer

Source: Kilroy Was Here (1996), p. 133

Stupidity, Courage, Success

“The nationality of an army is that of its political leadership, not of its common soldiers or its officer corps.”

Francis Parker Yockey (1917–1960) American writer

The Enemy of Europe (1953)

“We want to get our army involved with the people in productive work and remind it constantly that, without patriotic training, a soldier is only a criminal with power.”

Thomas Sankara (1949–1987) President of Upper Volta

From a speech to the United Nations on 4 October 1984 https://www.marxists.org/archive/sankara/1984/october/04.htm

People, Training

“Russian soldiers are fighting for the money, Ukrainian soldiers, Ukrainian citizens are fighting for the future of our children - and you feel the difference between the money and the children.”

Vitali Klitschko (1971) Ukrainian boxer and politician

"Ukraine war: Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko says it is 'a big privilege for every man' to defend Ukraine and warns Russian soldiers to 'go away'" https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-kyiv-mayor-vitali-klitschko-says-it-is-a-big-privilege-for-every-man-to-defend-ukraine-and-warns-russian-soldiers-to-go-away-12578968, Sky News, 31 March 2022

Money, Children, Feeling, Future

“Russians go away, Russian soldiers have to go away from our home country - and after that we are ready to discuss.”

Vitali Klitschko (1971) Ukrainian boxer and politician

2022

Home, Country