"We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
- Winston Churchill
Courage
"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."
- Sun Tzu
Wisdom
"To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."
- Sun Tzu
Success
"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."
- Sun Tzu
Success
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."
- Smedley Butler
Insight
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete."
- Sun Tzu
Success
"Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory: 1 He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. 2 He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.3 He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. 4 He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. 5 He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign."
- Sun Tzu
Success
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."
- Sun Tzu
Adaptation
"If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
- Sun Tzu
Insight
"The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"
- Mahatma Gandhi
Compassion
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good man do nothing."
- Edmund Burke
Courage
"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding."
- Albert Einstein
Peace
"Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Courage
"The way of peace is the way of love."
- Mahatma Gandhi
Peace
"What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease."
- Sun Tzu
Success
"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."
- Mahatma Gandhi
Compassion
"The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own."
- Aldous Huxley
Adversity
"In warfare, there are no constant conditions. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent will succeed and win."
- Sun Tzu
Adaptation
"they'll give a war and nobody will come."
- Carl Sandburg
Adversity
"Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die."
- Herbert Hoover
Courage
"War is a defeat for humanity."
- Pope John Paul II
Courage
"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."
- G.K. Chesterton
Courage
"The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission."
- John F. Kennedy
Courage
"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell."
- William Tecumseh Sherman
Courage
"In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons."
- Herodotus
Courage
"He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious."
- Sun Tzu
Wisdom
"The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent."
- Sun Tzu
Adaptation
"So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak."
- Sun Tzu
Adaptation
"The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected."
- Sun Tzu
Philosophy
"Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons. And they will follow you into the deepest valley."
- Sun Tzu
Leadership
"There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare."
- Sun Tzu
Philosophy
"To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy."
- Sun Tzu
Adaptation
"A leader leads by example not by force."
- Sun Tzu
Leadership
"In order to know your enemy, you must become your enemy."
- Sun Tzu
Adaptation
"The way to achieve peace is not to be pacifist but to be anti-violent. To be pro-peace, you have to work for justice."
- Jim Wallis
Peace
"If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies."
- Moshe Dayan
Peace
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- Rafiki
Awareness
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
- Albert Einstein
Courage
"War is the continuation of politics by other means."
- Karl von Clausewitz
Philosophy
"War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Adversity
"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it."
- George Orwell
Awareness
"War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory."
- Albert Pike
Success
"Until death itself comes, no calamity need be feared."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him."
- Sun Tzu
Adaptation
"Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain."
- Sun Tzu
Adaptation
"War does not determine who is right — only who is left."
- Anonymous
Courage
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
- Albert Einstein
Awareness
"Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate."
- Sun Tzu
Adaptation
"Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots."
- Sun Tzu
Insight
"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history."
- George Orwell
Awareness
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
- Winston Churchill
Awareness
"If we don't end war, war will end us."
- H. G. Wells
Courage
"War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace."
- Thomas Mann
Courage
"War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man."
- Napoleon Hill
Courage
"We are all tourists in history, and irony is what we win in wars."
- Anatole Broyard
Reflection
"All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers."
- Francois Fenelon
Compassion
"I am not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it."
- Michel Foucault
Ambition
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
- Isaac Asimov
Courage
"If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree."
- MICHAEL CRICHTON
Awareness
"Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance."
- Sun Tzu
Adaptation
"When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard."
- Sun Tzu
Adaptation
"One may know how to conquer without being able to do it."
- Sun Tzu
Insight
"If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"Carefully compare the opposing army with your own, so that you may know where strength is superabundant and where it is deficient."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"Knowing the place and the time of the coming battle, we may concentrate from the greatest distances in order to fight."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible attacks; numerical strength, from compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"An unjust peace is better than a just war."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
Courage
"You can't say civilization don't advance... in every war they kill you in a new way."
- Will Rogers
Change
"O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"The great object is that every man be armed."
- Patrick Henry
Courage
"The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Courage
"You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"If it were a fact, it wouldn't be called intelligence."
- Donald Rumsfeld
Insight
"The clever combatant looks to the effect of combined energy, and does not require too much from individuals."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"The control of a large force is the same principle as the control of a few men: it is merely a question of dividing up their numbers."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"The curse of mankind is that we suffer from too much consciousness."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Awareness
"Only the dead have seen the end of war."
- George Santayana
Courage
"Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it."
- Havelock Ellis
Courage
"Energy may be likened to the bending of a crossbow; decision, to the releasing of the trigger."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy's purpose."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"At first, then, exhibit the coyness of a maiden, until the enemy gives you an opening; afterwards emulate the rapidity of a running hare, and it will be too late for the enemy to oppose you."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"If you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"The skillful soldier does not raise a second levy, neither are his supply-wagons loaded more than twice."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"The experienced soldier, once in motion, is never bewildered; once he has broken camp, he is never at a loss."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even though the ruler forbid it; if fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler's bidding."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"War is what happens when language fails."
- Margaret Atwood
Courage
"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."
- George Orwell
Philosophy
"God created war so that Americans would learn geography."
- Mark Twain
Courage
"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."
- George S. Patton
Courage
"You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
Wisdom
"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."
- Jeannette Rankin
Courage
"When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die."
- Jean-Paul Sartre
Courage
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse."
- John Stuart Mill
Courage
"I have not yet begun to fight!"
- John Paul Jones
Courage
"There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others."
- Niccolo Machiavelli
Courage
"It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it."
- Robert E. Lee
Courage
"The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war."
- Norman Schwarzkopf
Wisdom
"The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars."
- William Westmoreland
Courage
"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time."
- Leo Tolstoy
Overcoming Obstacles
"I have never advocated war except as a means of peace."
- Ulysses S. Grant
Courage
"To take a long and circuitous route, after enticing the enemy out of the way, and though starting after him, to contrive to reach the goal before him, shows knowledge of the artifice of deviation."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"Let your rapidity be that of the wind, your compactness that of the forest."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"In raiding and plundering be like fire, in immovability like a mountain."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"Place your army in deadly peril, and it will survive; plunge it into desperate straits, and it will come off in safety."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"Forestall your opponent by seizing what he holds dear, and subtly contrive to time his arrival on the ground."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"Walk in the path defined by rule, and accommodate yourself to the enemy until you can fight a decisive battle."
- Sun Tzu
Courage
"All warfare is based on deception."
Adaptation
"Forgiveness is not a gift to the person who has wronged you, but to yourself."
Forgiveness