George C. Marshall Quotes

I must have assistants who will solve their own problems and tell me later what they've done.

As to my political faith- I have never voted. My father was a Democrat, my mother a Republican, and I am an Episcopalian.

The patient is sinking while the doctors deliberate.

Regarding the air raid over Los Angeles it was learned by Army G2 that Rear Admiral Anderson ... recovered an unidentified airplane off the coast of California ... with no bearing on conventional explanation. This Headquarters has come to the determination that the mystery airplanes are in fact not earthly and, according to secret intelligence sources, they are in all probability of interplanetary origin.

The instruments of war can be manufactured ... human blood cannot be; and the lack of just one pint could mean the life of an American serviceman.

Wars are bred by poverty and oppression. Continued peace is possible only in a relatively free and prosperous world.

If you get the objectives right, a lieutenant can write the strategy.

Morale is a state of mind. It is steadfastness and courage and hope.

I was very careful to send Mr. Roosevelt every few days a statement of our casualties. I tried to keep before him all the time the casualty results because you get hardened to these things and you have to be very careful to keep them always in the forefront of your mind.

There has been considerable comment over the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a soldier. I am afraid this does not seem as remarkable to me as it quite evidently appears to others. I know a great deal of the horrors and tragedies of war ... The cost of war in human lives is constantly spread before me, written neatly in many ledgers whose columns are gravestones. I am deeply moved to find some means or method of avoiding another calamity of war.

It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It is morale that wins the victory.

I can't expect loyalty from the army if I do not give it.

Climate change is a very unusual ethical challenge because it's so completely measurable ... one of the reasons people should take action is because they have a responsibility for their emissions ... therefore what somebody else does is really irrelevant

The price of peace is eternal vigilance

"Morale is the state of mind. It is steadfastness and courage and hope. It is confidence and zeal and loyalty. It is elan, esprit de corps and determination."

The gallantry and aggressive fighting spirit of the Russian soldiers command the American army's admiration.

I don't want you fellows sitting around asking me what to do. I want you to tell me what to do.

Democracy is the most demanding of all forms of government in terms of the energy, imagination, and public spirit required of the individual.

The choice is between acting with energy or losing by default.

You know, I know, all of us know that the time factor is the vital consideration - and vital is the correct meaning of the term - of our national defense program; that we must never be caught in the same situation we found ourselves in 1917.

I said bluntly that if the president were to follow Mr. Clifford's advice and if in the elections I were to vote, I would vote against the president.

Military power wins battles, but spiritual power wins wars.

We are in the middle of a world revolution, and I don't mean Communism. The revolution I'm talking about is that of the little, poor people all over the world. They're beginning to learn what there is in life, and to learn what they are missing.

When a thing is done, it's done. Don't look back. Look forward to your next objective.

Go right straight down the road, to do what is best, and to do it frankly and without evasion.

Don't fight the problem, decide it.

I will give you the best I have.

What other people do shouldn't affect you - we do things because of the kind of person we each want to be

No compromise is possible and the victory of the democracies can only be complete with the utter defeat of the war machines of Germany and Japan.

The soldier's heart, the soldier's spirit, the soldier's soul, are everything. Unless the soldier's soul sustains him he cannot be relied on and will fail himself and his commander and his country in the end.

The refusal of the British and Russian peoples to accept what appeared to be inevitable defeat was the great factor in the salvage of our civilization.

I am certain that a solution of the general problem of peace must rest on broad and basic understanding on the part of its peoples. Great single endeavors like a League of Nations, a United Nations, and undertakings of that character, are of great importance and in fact absolutely necessary, but they must be treated as steps toward the desired end.

The time has come when we must proceed with the business of carrying the war to the enemy, not permitting the greater portion of our armed forces and our valuable material to be immobilized within the continental United States.

We must stop setting our sights by the light of each passing ship; instead we must set our course by the stars.