Military Quotes/Quotations
R: Rabin - Rumyantsev
I can't
guarantee that these quotations are correct or true,
but I have tried to verify as many of the quotes as possible.
Please contact me if you find any errors in the quotes,
have some additional information about the quotes
or if you know any more quotations that's
not listed here.
Enjoy the Quotes/Quotations
"I, serial number
30743, Major General Yitzhak Rabin, am a soldier in the army of peace."
Prime minister and retired Chief Of Staff Yitzhak Rabin
during a speech to the US Congress 1994.
The surest way to
prevent a war is not to fear it
- John Randolf, to the House of Representatives, 5 March 1808.
You can no more win a war than than you can win an earthquake.
- Jeannette Rankin
"The person
who knows "how" will always have a job. The person who know
"why" will always be his boss."
-Diane Ravitch, speech, 1985
"The greatest
intensification of the horrors of war is a direct result of the democratisation
of the State. So long as the army was a professional unit, the specialist
function of a limited number of men, war remained a relatively harmless contest
for power. But once it became everyman's duty to defend his home (or his
political "rights") warfare was free to range wherever that home might
be, and to attack every form of life and property associated with that
home."
- Herbert Read
"... the basic
principles of the military services are unchangeable. Courage and candor,
obedience and comradeship, love of fatherland and loyalty to the State: these
are ever the distinguishing characteristics of the soldier and sailor. Building
character through intelligent training and education is always the first and
greatest goal."
- Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, Commander in Chief of the German Navy
"We should
declare war on North Vietnam. . . .We could pave the whole country and put
parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas."
-Ronald Reagan, 1965
"Some people live an
entire lifetime and wonder if they have ever made a difference in the world, but
the Marines don't have that problem."
-Attributed to Ronald Reagan
(I can't find any source for this one, please contact me if
you know where/when it's from)
"Today we did what
we had to do. They counted on America to be passive.
They counted wrong."
- Ronald Reagan
In response to terrorism by Libya
(1986)
"Courage is doing
what you're afraid to do.
There can be no courage unless you're scared."
- World War I Ace Pilot Eddie Rickenbacker
The more you sweat
in peace, the less you bleed in war.
- Hyman G. Rickover 1986
"Find the
enemy and shoot him down. Anything else is nonsense"
- Captain Manfred
von Richthofen ("The Red Baron"), 1917
Diplomats are just
as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it.... You take
diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.
- Will Rogers
"You can't say that civilization don't advance, for in
every war they kill you a new way."
- Will Rogers
"I have to
follow them. I am their leader."
-Alexandre-Auguste Ledru-Rollin, Leader of the French Revolution of 1848
"We will
have to want peace, want it enough to pay for it, before it becomes an
accepted rule."
- Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1964
"The only
thing we have to fear is fear itself."
- Franklin D Roosevelt, US
"It is not
the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled,
or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belong to the
man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and
blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again. Who
knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a
worthy cause. Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high
achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring
greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
know neither victory nor defeat."
- Theodore Roosevelt ("The
Man in the Arena")
"No man is
worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his body, to risk his
well being, to risk his life, in a great cause."
- Theodore Roosevelt
"The
universe is so vast and ageless that the life of one man can only be measured
by the size of his sacrifice." (or how he lived...)
- Flying Officer VA Rosewarne, RAF, killed in the Battle of Britain. The
letter with this line was published in the London Times
"One kills a
man, one is an assassin, one kills millions, one is a conqueror, one kills
everybody, one is a god."
-Jean Rostand, Thoughts of a Biologist
"The
objective is not the occupation of a geographical position, but the
destruction of the enemy force"
- General Piotr A. Rumyantsev (1725-1796)
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