P: Rabin – Rumyantsev Military Quotes and Quotations
“I, serial number 30743, Major General Yitzhak Rabin, am a soldier in the army of peace.”
– Prime minister of Israel 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, former President of the United States
“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)
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 are not listed here.
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