Military history is rich with quotes that encapsulate the spirit, challenges, and paradoxes of warfare and leadership. These quotations are often as relevant today as they were in their time, offering timeless insights into human nature, strategy, and the profession of arms. Below is a collection of notable military and general quotes, along with humorously critical extracts from officers’ annual confidential reports. They are grouped into categories for ease of reference.
Military Quotes
These quotes capture the ethos of military life, the challenges of command, and the truths of warfare.
On Strategy and Leadership
- “The military value of a partisan’s work is not measured by the amount of property destroyed, or the number of men killed or captured, but the number he keeps watching.”
— John Singleton Mosby, Confederate Cavalry Leader - “When other Generals make mistakes their armies are beaten; when I get into a hole, my men pull me out of it.”
— The Duke of Wellington, reflecting on his troops’ resilience after Waterloo
On War and Morale
- “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
— Attributed to a Japanese submarine commander - “The purpose of war is not to die for your country. The purpose of war is to ensure that the other guy dies for his country.”
— General George S. Patton
On the Nature of War
- “Confusion in battle is what pain is in childbirth—the natural order of things.”
— General Maurice Tugwell - “War is a competition of incompetence—the least incompetent usually win.”
— Pakistani General A.A.K. Niazi, reflecting on the Bangladesh Liberation War
General Quotes
While not specific to the military, these observations resonate with universal truths about leadership, human nature, and power.
- “Success is generally 90 percent persistence.”
— Anonymous - “He knows nothing and thinks that he knows everything. That points to a political career.”
— George Bernard Shaw - “The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.”
— G.K. Chesterton - “What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.”
— Lord Melbourne
Humor in Military Confidential Reports
Annual confidential reports often blend biting humor with sharp critiques, illustrating the personalities and challenges within military command structures.
- “Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap.”
- “This officer is depriving a village somewhere of its idiot.”
- “His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity.”
- “Technically sound, but socially impossible.”
- “Since my last report, he has reached rock bottom and started to dig.”
- “She sets low personal standards and consistently fails to achieve them.”
- “I would not breed from this officer.”
Reflections on Leadership and Command
- “The easiest and quickest path into the esteem of traditional military authorities is by the appeal to the eye, rather than to the mind.”
— Captain Sir Basil Liddell Hart, Thoughts on War (1944) - “There is no beating these troops in spite of their generals. I always thought them bad soldiers, now I am sure of it. I turned their right, pierced their center, broke them everywhere; the day was mine, and yet they did not know it and would not run.”
— Marshal Soult, on the British at Albuhera, 1811
Satirical and Philosophical Insights
- “Peace—in international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.”
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1911) - “Nothing is so good for the morale of the troops as occasionally to see a dead general.”
— Field Marshal William Slim - “The number of medals on an officer’s breast varies in inverse proportion to the square of the distance of his duty from the front line.”
— Charles Edward Montague
