100 Inspirational Military Quotes to Motivate and Lead

"The most important thing I learned is that soldiers watch what their leaders do. You can give them classes and lecture them forever, but it is your personal example they will follow."

- General Colin Powell

"I may not have been the best combat commander, but I always strove to be. My men depended on me to carefully analyze every tactical situation, to maximize the resources that I had at my disposal, to think under pressure, and then to lead them by personal example."

- Major Dick Winters

"If you are going to win any battle, you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do… the body is never tired if the mind is not tired."

- General George S. Patton

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm"

- George Orwell

"An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep."

- Alexander the Great

"Owning the facts is a prerequisite to leadership. But there are millions of technocrats out there with lots of facts in their quivers and little leadership potential. In many cases, what they are missing is empathy. No one is a leader who can’t put himself or herself in the other person’s shoes. Empathy and expertise command respect."

- William Pagonis

"Always do everything you ask of those you command."

- General George S. Patton

"A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent."

- Douglas MacArthur

"The truth is that you always know the right thing to do. The tough part is doing it."

- General Norman Schwarzkopf

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts"

- Winston S. Churchill

"When things go wrong in your command, start wading for the reason in increasing larger concentric circles around your own desk."

- General Bruce D. Clark

"The soldier is the army. No army is better than its soldiers. The soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one’s country."

- Gen. George S. Patton Jr.

"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."

- General George S. Patton

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."

- Colin Powell

"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week"

- George Patton

"After being severely wounded two weeks before my nineteenth birthday I had a bad time until I figured out that nothing could happen to me that had not happened to all men before me. Whatever I had to do men had always done. If they had done it then I could do it too and the best thing was not to worry about it."

- Ernest Hemingway

"Be an example to your men, in your duty and in private life. Never spare yourself and let your troops see that you don’t in your endurance of fatigue and privation. Always be tactful and well-mannered. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide."

- German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

"The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army. It is possible to impart instruction and give commands in such a manner and such a tone of voice as to inspire in the soldier no feeling but an intense desire to obey, while the opposite manner and tone of voice cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a desire to disobey. The one mode or the other in dealing with subordinates springs from a corresponding spirit in the breast of the commander. He who feels the respect which is due to others cannot fail to inspire in them respect for himself; while he who feels, and hence manifests, disrespect toward others, especially his subordinates, cannot fail to inspire hatred against himself."

- LTG John M. Schofield

"In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten; then he who continues the attack wins."

- General Ulysses S. Grant

"I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but by how high he bounces when he hits bottom."

- General George S. Patton

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

- George Orwell

"Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid."

- Col. David Hackworth

"Who dares, wins. Who sweats, wins. Who plans, wins."

- British Special Air Service (SAS)

"Ultimately, leadership is not about glorious crowning acts. It’s about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it, especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter. It is about laying the groundwork for others’ success, and then standing back and letting them shine."

- Chris Hadfield

"We're all one team - and together, we're strong and we're in this together."

- Bo Brabo

"Attract the right people. Let them know what they have to do. Give them the tools to do the job. And when they get it done, your job as a leader is to make sure they get the credit for it."

- General (Retired) Rick Hillier

"Leadership consists of picking good men and helping them do their best"

- Admiral Chester W. Nimitz

"Step one of inspiring your team is really to help them to get bought into the leader, but step two is to help them get bought into the mission"

- Former Commanding Officer US Marine Corps David Robinson

"leader leads by example, not by force."

- Sun Tzu

"I divide my officers into four classes as follows: the clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can, under certain circumstances, be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous."

- Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord

"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."

- Jim Mattis

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people…This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. Though you follow the trade of the warrior, you do so in the spirit of Washington -- not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our way of life justifies resort to conflict."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"But all history has taught us the grim lesson that no nation has ever been successful in avoiding the terrors of war by refusing to defend its rights -- by attempting to placate aggression."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"we have seen war, we do not want war, but if you want war with the united states of america i can promise you this; Somebody else will raise your sons and daughters"

- Medal of honor recipient stg Bellvia

"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave."

- Elmer Davis

"On the battlefield, the military pledges to leave no soldier behind. As a nation, let it be our pledge that when they return home, we leave no veteran behind."

- Dan Lipinski

"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

"No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation."

- General Douglas MacArthur

"Don't stop trying or fighting for what you believe in the first time someone tells you no."

- General (Retired) Ann Dunwoody

"Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end."

- Field Marshal Douglas Haig

"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

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."

- President John Quincy Adams

"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

"A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself."

- Joseph Campbell

"I have long believed that sacrifice is the pinnacle of patriotism."

- Bob Riley

"Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war."

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"True patriotism isn't cheap. It's about taking on a fair share of the burden of keeping America going."

- Robert Reich

"These fallen heroes represent the character of a nation who has a long history of patriotism and honor – and a nation who has fought many battles to keep our country free from threats of terror."

- Michael N. Castle

"The veterans of our military services have put their lives on the line to protect the freedoms that we enjoy. They have dedicated their lives to their country and deserve to be recognized for their commitment."

- Judd Gregg

"The more comfort, the less courage there is."

- Field Marshal Prince Aleksandr V. Suvorov

"Confusion in battle is what pain is in childbirth—the natural order of things."

- General Maurice Tugwell

"When you become a leader you give up the right to think about yourself."

- Gerald Brooks

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it."

- Mark Twain

"How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!"

- Maya Angelou

"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

"We are defined by what we do repeatedly, therefore excellence is a habit, not an act."

- Aristotle

"Who you are speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you are saying."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

- Winston Churchill

"Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic…This is the only way to become a great general and master the secrets of the art of war…"

- Napoleon Bonaparte

"All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavor to find out what you don’t know by what you do do; that’s what I call ‘guessing what was on the other side of the hill"

- Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

"Men mean more than guns in the rating of a ship"

- John Paul Jones

"I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles, and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely with his lips, follow me."

- Giuseppe Garibaldi

"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

- Charles George Gordon

"It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it."

- General Robert E. Lee

"We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training."

- Archilochus

"War is a competition of incompetence—the least incompetent usually win."

- Pakistani General A.A.K. Niazi

"To spend a few minutes with people is simply not productive. If one wants to get anything across, one has to spend a fairly large minimum quantum of time. The manager who things that he can discuss the plans, direction, and performance of one of his subordinates in fifteen minutes – and many managers believe this – is just deceiving himself. If one wants to get to the point of having an impact, one needs probably at least an hour and usually more. And if one has to establish a human relationship, one needs infinitely more time."

- Peter F. Drucker

"The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

- Thomas Paine

"In valor there is hope."

- Tacitus

"Bravery never goes out of fashion."

- William Makepeace Thackeray

"The brave die never, though they sleep in dust: Their courage nerves a thousand living men."

- Minot J. Savage

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

- President Thomas Jefferson

"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

"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave."

- Patrick Henry

"The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums."

- G.K. Chesterton

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

- Confucius

"Fortune favors the brave."

- Virgil

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

- Nathan Hale

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born, and the day you figure out why."

- Mark Twain

"Facta non verba (Translation: Deeds, not words)"

- Canadian Joint Task Force

"Discipline is the soul of an army."

- George Washington

"Leaders must be seen to be up front, up to date, up to their job and up early in the morning."

- Marcus Sieff

"No man is free who is not master of himself."

- Epictetus

"He knows nothing and thinks that he knows everything. That points to a political career."

- George Bernard Shaw

"What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass."

- Lord Melbourne

"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth."

- George Washington

"Nothing is so good for the morale of the troops as occasionally to see a dead general."

- Field Marshal William Slim

"For love of country they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue."

- James A. Garfield

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die."

- Thomas Campbell

"Well done is better than well said."

- Benjamin Franklin

"To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace."

- George Washington

"He who is brave is free."

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"The mind is everything. What you think you become."

- Buddha

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

- Thomas Paine

"In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons."

- Herodotus

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."

- George Santayana

"America means opportunity, freedom, power."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Gratitude is the sign of noble souls."

- Aesop

"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies."

- Aristotle

"The measure of a man is what he does with power."

- Plato

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

- Napoleon Bonaparte

"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

"Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul."

- Michel de Montaigne

"The legacy of heroes—the memory of a great name, and the inheritance of a great example."

- Benjamin Disraeli

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others."

- Marcus Tullius Cicero

"No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks."

- James Allen

"He loves his country best who strives to make it best."

- Robert G. Ingersoll

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything."

- Alexander Hamilton

"Where liberty dwells, there is my country."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Peace—in international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting."

- Ambrose Bierce

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power."

"No man is a leader until he is ratified in the minds and hearts of his men."

"Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom."

"Success is generally 90 percent persistence."

- Anonymous

"You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city. - If"

"Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others."

"Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it."

"A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer."

"Better than honor and glory, and history's iron pen, was the thought of duty done and the love of his fellow-men."

"Courage conquers all things."

"A lack of planning on your part does not constitute a crisis on mine…unless of course I failed to lead you."

"Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer."

"He who has health has hope; and he who has hope has everything."

"The better part of valor is discretion."

"It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country."

"The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them."

"The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another."

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."

"Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them."

"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

"A man’s country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle."

"A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand."

"A faithful man shall abound with blessings."

"He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much."

"Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful."

"Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen."

"Pain is weakness leaving the body... I think weakness is pain entering the body."

"He serves his party best who serves the country best."

"When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate—when honor scorns to compromise with death—that is heroism."

"The patriot's blood is the seed of Freedom's tree."

"The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation."

"How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

"Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country's cause. Honor, also, to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field and serves, as he best can, the same cause."

"The brave die never, though they sleep in dust."

"The beatings will continue until morale improves."