Military Leadership Quotes
I can’t guarantee that these military leadership quotes are correct or true,
but I have tried to verify as many of the leadership quotes as possible.
Please contact me if you find any errors in the quotes,
have some additional information about the leadership quotes
or if you know a leadership quote or two that’s not listed here.
Quotes and Quotations related to Military Leadership, Leaders and Leading
“There is nothing inevitable about military victory, even for forces of apparently overwhelming strength. The Greeks at Marathon, Alexander against the Persian Empire, the success of the colonists against the British in the American Revolution, Napoleon over the Austrians in Italy… all offer dramatic evidence to the contrary. In the absence of inspired military leadership… the more powerful side wears down the weaker.”
– Bevin Alexander
“Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity. If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.”
– Karl von Clausewitz
If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.
– Karl von Clausewitz
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
– General Dwight D. Eisenhower
“You don’t lead by hitting people over the head-that’s assault, not leadership.”
– General Dwight D. Eisenhower
“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
“To be a leader means to be able to move masses”
– Adolf Hitler
“The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.”
– Adolf Hitler
“Struggle is the father of all things, virtue lies in blood, leadership is primary and decisive”
– Adolf Hitler
“How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.”
– Adolf Hitler
“I must follow them. I am their leader.”
– Andrew Bonar Law, 1858-1923
There are two versions of the same quote
“I have to follow them. I am their leader.”
– Alexandre-Auguste Ledru-Rollin, Leader of the French Revolution of 1848
“The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.”
– Walter Lippmann, 1889-1974
“Reason and calm judgment, the qualities specially belonging to a leader.”
– Tacitus, 55-177
“A leader is a man who had the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do, and like it.”
– Harry Truman
“You must love soldiers in order to understand them, and understand them in order to lead them.”
– Henri Turenne
No leader should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no leader should fight a battle simply out of pique. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life. Hence the enlightened leader is heedful, and the good leader full of caution.
– Sun Tzu
“A leader is a man who can adapt principles to circumstances.”
– General George S. Patton
“Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”
– General George Patton
