F

"Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead."
- David Farragut: Battle of Mobil Bay, Aug. 5, 1864

"The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility" 
-British Sea Lord John Fisher

"Any fool can obey orders." 
-Sir John "Jackie" Fisher, architect of the World War I British Navy

"In tactics, action is the governing rule of war"
- Marsjall of France Ferdinand Foch

"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition."
- H. M. Forgy, chaplain USS New Orleans, Pearl Harbor, Dec 7, 1941

"I can always make it a rule to get there first with the most men."
   - Nathan Bedford Forrest

"There never was a good war, or a bad peace." 
- Benjamin Franklin

"Where is the prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds, might not, in many places, do an infinite deal of mischief before a force could be brought together to repel them?"
- Benjamin Franklin-1784

"By push of bayonets, no firing until you see the whites in their eyes!"
- Frederick the Great, at Prague, 1757

"Without supplies no army is brave"
- Frederick the great, "Instructions to his Generals" 1747

"Rascals, do you want to live forever?"
(Ihr Racker, wollt ihr ewig leben?)
- Frederick the Great, 1757.
When the guards hesitated at the battle of Kolin.

"A defensive war is apt to betray us into too frequent detachment. Those generals who have had but little experience attempt to protect every point, while those who are better acquainted w ith their profession, having only the capital object in view, guard against a decisive blow, and acquiesce in small misfortunes to avoid greater."
- Frederick the Great 

"The most certain way of insuring victory is to march briskly and in good order against the enemy, always endeavouring to gain ground."
-Frederick the Great

"I am up and about when I am ill, and in the most appalling weather. I am on horseback when other men would be flat out on their beds, complaining. We are made for action, and activity is the sovereign remedy for all physical ills."
- Frederick the Great

"Everything which the enemy least expects will succeed the best."
   - Frederick II of Prussia ("Instructions to his Generals")

"The first human being who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization."
- Sigmund Freud

"Men are strong so long as they represent a strong idea they become powerless when they oppose it."
- Sigmund Freud

"The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations."
- David Friedman

"There is no type of human endeavor where it is so important that the leader understands all phases of his job as that of the profession of arms."
   - Major General James Fry

"An Army is still a crowd, though a highly organized one. It is governed by the same laws, and under the stress of war is ever tending to revert to its crowd form. Our object in peace is so to train it that the reversion will become very slow"
- Major-General J.F.C Fuller, "Training soldiers for war" 1914

Many would be cowards if they had courage enough.
- Thomas Fuller, 1608-1681

"It is war that shapes peace, and armament that shapes war."
- Thomas Fuller