Douglas MacArthur Quotes

Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.

I see that the flagpole still stands. Have your troops hoist the colors to its peak, and let no enemy ever haul them down.

We are not retreating - we are advancing in another Direction

It seems strangely difficult for some to realize that here in Asia is where the Communist conspirators have elected to make their play for global conquest, and that we have joined the issue thus raised on the battlefield; that here we fight Europe's war with arms while the diplomats there still fight it with words; that if we lose the war to communism in Asia the fall of Europe is inevitable, win it and Europe most probably would avoid war and yet preserve freedom. As you pointed out, we must win. There is no substitute for victory.

My staff was unanimous in believing that Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender.

If I had one more division like this First Marine Division I could win this war.

Blank cartridges should never be used against a mob, nor should a volley be fired over the heads of the mob even if there is little danger of hurting persons in the rear. Such things will be regarded as an admission of weakness, or an attempt to bluff, and may do more harm than good.

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair; these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whatever your years, there is in every being's heart the love of wonder, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy and the game of life.

Even when opportunity knocks, a man still has to get up off his seat and open the door.

To dilute the will to win is to destroy the purpose of the game. There is no substitute for victory.

The issues which today confront the nation are clearly defined and so fundamental as to directly involve the very survival of the Republic. Are we going to preserve the religious base to our origin, our growth and our progress, or yield to the devious assaults of atheistic or other anti-religious forces? Are we going to maintain our present course toward State Socialism with Communism just beyond or reverse the present trend and regain our hold upon our heritage of liberty and freedom?

However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.

Nothing would please me better than if they would give me three months and then attack here.

Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.

The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave.

The nations of the world will have to unite for the next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of Earth must some day make a common front against attack by people from other planets.

Men will not fight and die without knowing what they are fighting and dying for.

He thus reaps the full fruits which result from his toil and labors with the incentive of free enterprise to maximize his effort to achieve increasing production. Representing over a half of Japan's total population, the agriculture workers have become an invincible barrier against the advance of socialistic ideas which would relegate all to the indignity of state servitude.

I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any treat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.

In war, as it is waged now, with the enormous losses on both sides, both sides will lose. It is a form of mutual suicide.

A better world shall emerge based on faith and understanding.

And like the old soldier in that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the sight to see that duty.

Rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind.

I realize that advice is worth what it costs
that is, nothing.

For the sentimentalism and emotionalism which have infested our country, we should substitute hard common sense. Pacific habits do not insure peace or immunity from national insult and aggression.

Roosevelt is dead: a man who would never tell the truth when a lie would serve him just as well.

The soldier, above all other men, is required to perform the highest act of religious offering-sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death he discloses those divine attributes which his amke gave when he created in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instincts can take the place of the divine annunciation and spiritual gift which will alone sustain him.

Part of the American dream is to live long and die young. Only those Americans who are willing to die for their country are fit to live.

The untruthful soldier trifles with the lives of his countrymen and the honor and safety of his country.

The outfit soon took on color, dash and a unique flavor which is the essence of that elusive and deathless thing called soldiering.

Training distinguishes an army from an armed mob.

I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only be deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.

I have just returned from visiting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world!

History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.

In short, is American life of the future to be characterized by freedom or by servitude, strength or weakness? The answer must be clear and unequivocal if we are to avoid the pitfalls toward which we are now heading with such certainty. In many respects it is not to be found in any dogma of political philosophy but in those immutable precepts which underlie the Ten Commandments.

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace.

A soldier plods and groans, sweats and toils, he growls and curses, and at the end he dies.

The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.

The Pacific no longer represents menacing avenues of approach for a prospective invader. It assumes, instead, the friendly aspect of a peaceful lake. Our line of defense is a natural one and can be maintained with a minimum of military effort and expense.

It seems to me the worst possible concept, militarily, that we would simply stay there, resisting aggression, so-called ... it seems to me that the way to "resist aggression" is to destroy the potentialities of the aggressor to continually hit you ... When you say, merely, "we are going to continue to fight aggression," that is not what the enemy is fighting for. The enemy is fighting for a very definite purpose-to destroy our forces ...

Here are centered the hopes and aspirations and faith of the entire human race. I do not stand here as advocate for any partisan cause, for the issues are fundamental and reach quite beyond the realm of partisan consideration. They must be resolved on the highest plane of national interest if our course is to prove sound and our future protected. I trust, therefore, that you will do me the justice of receiving that which I have to say as solely expressing the considered viewpoint of a fellow American.

Preparedness is the key to success and victory.

In no other profession are the penalties for employing untrained personnel so appalling or so irrevocable as in the military.

Never give an order that can't be obeyed.

Competitive sports keep alive in us a spirit and vitality. Sports teach the strong to know when they are weak and the brave to face themselves when they are afraid; to be proud and unbowed in defeat, and yet humble and gentle in victory; to master ourselves before we attempt to master others; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; and to give the predominance of courage over timidity.

I suppose, in a way, this has become part of my soul. It is a symbol of my life. Whatever I have done that really matters, I've done wearing it. When the time comes, it will be in this that I journey forth. What greater honor could come to an American, and a soldier?

In war, you win or lose, live or die - and the difference is just an eyelash.

Once war is forced upon us, there is no alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War's very object is victory-not prolonged indecision.

There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.

I came through and I shall return.

Apart from an innate grasp of tactical concepts, a great coach must possess the essentials attributes of leadership which mold men into a cohesive, fighting team with an invincible will to victory.

A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.

By profession I am a Soldier & take pride in that fact, but I am prouder to be a father.

The enemy is in front of us, the enemy is behind us, the enemy is to the right and to the left of us. They can't get away this time!

I will defend Korea as I would my own country-just as I would California.

Last, but by no means least, courage of one's convictions, the courage to see things through. The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle_ the roar of the crowd on one side and the voice of your conscience on the other.

You don't win wars by dying for your country you win wars by making the other son of a bitch die for his

I believe that the entire effort of modern society should be concentrated on the endeavor to outlaw war as a method of the solution of problems between nations.

Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.

From the Far East I send you one single thought, one sole idea - written in red on every beachhead from Australia to Tokyo - "There is no substitute for victory!"

It is my earnest hope - indeed the hope of all mankind - that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past, a world found upon faith and understanding, a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance and justice.

By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder - infinitely prouder - to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle field but in the home repeating with him our simple daily prayer, Our Father Who Art in Heaven.

I came out of Bataan and I shall return!

I stand on this rostrum with a sense of deep humility and great pride - humility in the weight of those great American architects of our history who have stood here before me; pride in the reflection that this home of legislative debate represents human liberty in the purest form yet devised.

I have known war as few men now living know it. It's very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.

Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.

It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.

I know that this operation will be sort of helter-skelter. But the First Marine Division is going to win the war by landing at Inchon.

The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of government power.

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

If there is anything that makes my blood boil it is to see our allies in Indochina and Java deploying Japanese troops to reconquer the little people we promised to liberate. It is the most ignoble kind of betrayal.

On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days, on other fields will bear the fruits of victory.

That democracy works and will always work, because the people are allowed to think, to talk, and keep their minds free, open, and supple.

In war, indeed, there can be no substitute for victory.

Global war has become Frankenstein's monster, threatening to destroy both sides.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

The inescapable price of liberty is an ability to preserve it from destruction.

While no man in his right mind would advocate sending our ground forces into continental China, and such was never given a thought, the new situation did urgently demand a drastic revision of strategic planning if our political aim was to defeat this new enemy as we had defeated the old.

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

No army has ever done so much with so little.

Age wrinkles the body; quitting wrinkles the soul.

One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda.

Give me ten thousand Filipino soldiers and I will conquer the world.

While I was not consulted prior to the President's decision to intervene in support of the Republic of Korea, that decision from a military standpoint, proved a sound one, as we hurled back the invader and decimated his forces. Our victory was complete, and our objectives within reach, when Red China intervened with numerically superior ground forces.

I am of Virginia and all my professional life I have studied of Lee and Jackson

The powers in charge keep us in a perpetual state of fear keep us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.

Expect only 5% of an intelligence report to be accurate.The trick of a good commander is to isolate the 5%.

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency.

Believe me, sir, never a night goes by, be I ever so tired, but I read the Word of God before I go to bed.

The hated system of land tenure, so contributory to general unrest in Asia, has been abolished. Every farmer is now accorded the right and dignity of ownership of the land he long has tilled.

Optimism is denial, so face the facts and move on

The history of the failure of war can almost be summed up in two words: too late.

They died hard, those savage men - like wounded wolves at bay. They were filthy, and they were lousy, and they stunk. And I loved them.

It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.

Never ask age of a woman.

For those to whom much is given, much is required. It is not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up. There is no substitute for victory.

Wars are caused by unprotected wealth.

In many situations that seemed desperate, the artillery has been a most vital factor.

Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain with death - the seas bear only commerce - men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world lies quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed. And in reporting this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way.

Beware not the enemy from 'without' but the enemy from 'within'.