Duke Of Wellington Quotes

I have got an infamous army, very weak and ill-equipped, and a very inexperienced staff.

I see no reason to suppose these machines will ever force themselves into general use.

I have no small talk and Peel has no manners.

I am not only not prepared to bring forward any measure of this nature, but I will at once declare that, as far as I am concerned, as long as I hold any station in the Government of the country, I shall always feel it my duty to resist such measures when proposed by others.

If you believe that you will believe anything.

There are no manifestos like cannon and musketry.

The scum of the earth ... but what fine soldiers we have made them.

I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life.

A great country cannot wage a little war.

I acknowledge that I should not like to see again such loss as I sustained on
the 23rd September, even if attended by such a gain.

Troops would never be deficient in courage, if they could only know how deficient in it their enemies were.

When other Generals make mistakes their armies are beaten; when I get into a hole, my men pull me out of it.

A great country ought not to make little wars.

All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called 'guess what was at the other side of the hill'.

During the Peninsula War, I heard a Portuguese general address his troops before a battle with the words, Remember men, you are Portuguese!

Our army is composed of the scum of the earth - the mere scum of the earth.

When one begins to turn in bed, it is time to get up.

Hard pounding, gentlemen. Let's see who pounds the longest.

The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance..

Believe me that every man you see in a military uniform is not a hero.

What masks are these uniforms to hide cowards!

Call on a business man only at business times, and on business; transact your business, and go about your business, in order to give him time to finish his business.

The French system of conscription brings together a fair sample of all classes; ours is composed of the scum of the earth - the mere scum of the earth. It is only wonderful that we should be able to make so much out of them afterwards.

There is nothing so dreadful as a great victory
except a great defeat.

The British soldiers are fellows who have all enlisted for drink. That is the plain fact - they have all enlisted for drink.

God deliver me from my friends! I'll take care of my enemies myself.

You must build your House of Parliament on the river: so ... that the populace cannot exact their demands by sitting down round you.

There is no mistake; there has been no mistake; and there shall be no mistake.

My rule always was to do the business of the day in the day.

The only thing that they can be relied on to do is to gallop too far and too fast.

It is very true that I have said that I considered Napoleon's presence in the field equal to forty thousand men in the balance. This is a very loose way of talking; but the idea is a very different one from that of his presence at a battle being equal to a reinforcement of forty thousand men.

Yes, about ten minutes.

Today when a man gets married he gets a home, a housekeeper, a cook, a cheering squad and another paycheck. When a woman marries, she gets a boarder. To define it rudely but not ineptly, engineering is the art of doing that well with one dollar, which any bungler can do with two after a fashion.

Rashness is oftener the resort of cowardice than of courage.

I have seen their backs before.

An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay and discuss them.

The hardest thing of all for a soldier is to retreat.

Just to show you how little reliance can be placed even on what are supposed the best accounts of a battle, I mention that there are some circumstances mentioned in General -'s account which did not occur as he relates them. It is impossible to say when each important occurrence took place, or in what order.

Error is ever the sequence of haste.

Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.