Generals Quotes

War is treachery and hatred, the muddling of incompetent generals, the torture and killing and sickness and tiredness, until at last it is over and nothing has changed except for new weariness and new hatreds. ~ John Steinbeck

As well as the [League of Nations] delegates themselves and their suites, there were innumerable campaigners of one sort and another, male and female, clerical and lay, young and old; all with some notion to publicise, some pet solution to offer, some organisation to promote. They gathered in droves, fanning out through the city, and settling in hotels and pensions, from the Lakeside ones down to tiny obscure back-street establishments. Ferocious ladies with moustaches, clergymen with black leather patches on the elbows of their jackets or cassocks and smelling of tobacco smoke, mad admirals who knew where to find the lost tribes of Israel, and scarcely saner generals who deduced prophetic warnings from the measurement of the pyramids; but one and all believers in the League's historic role to deliver mankind painlessly and inexpensively from the curse of war to the great advantage of all concerned. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

One of the things I would immediately do [as Commander in Chief ], in addition to defeating them here at home, is bring back the warrior class - Petraeus, McChrystal, Mattis, Keane, Flynn. Every single one of these generals I know. Every one was retired early because they told President [Barack] Obama things that he didn't want to hear. ~ Carly Fiorina

This modern craze for putting the young in positions of authority - headmasters in their thirties, bishops without a gray hair on their heads, generals who scarcely need to use a razor - ever since it took hold the world's gone steadily downhill. ~ Elizabeth Goudge

But the doctors in the past, as the review of the evidence showed, branded Jenner, Semmelweis, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Pasteur, Lister, Koch and Keen as charlatans ... Napoleon said that war is too important to be left to the generals. We go on the assumption in the Senate that foreign relations are too important to be left to the diplomats ... this question (on a novel cancer cure) is too important to leave purely to doctors ... ~ Paul Douglas

Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly despair of triumph; killing will be defamed. Let priests secretly despair of faith: their compassion will be true. ~ Leonard Cohen

It was too much for Adolf Hitler. In the summer of 1944, he began to vent his anger at the Luftwaffe for its failures from the Battle of Britain to Stalingrad and now Normandy. 'Goering! The Luftwaffe's doing nothing,' he railed at the Reichsmarschall during one conference. 'It's no longer worthy to be an independent service. And that's your fault. You're lazy.' Tears rolled down the Reichsmarschall's cheeks. He reported himself 'sick' for future conferences and ordered his generals to deputize. ~ Richard Hargreaves

Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

We all know why [the generals] are so critical of the defense secretary. They're being defensive because they weren't able to implement his brilliant plan [on screen: Operation 'Greet Us As Liberators']. It was so simple: Go in with 100,000 troops, topple the regime, everybody loves us, and we leave by Easter 2003. These ex-military men have their right to their opinions, that's fine. They just shouldn't voice them during a war [on screen: 'Loose Lips Sink Approval Ratings'] ~ Stephen Colbert

We didn't have last names before they came. When they decided they needed to keep track of us, last names were given to us, just like the name "INDIAN" itself was given to us. These were attempted translations and botched Indian names, random surnames, and names passed down from white American generals, admirals, and colonels, and sometimes troop names, which were sometimes just colors. ~ Tommy Orange

During the Civil War, on hearing complaints that Gen. Ulysses S. Grant drank alcohol to excess Find out what Grant drinks and send a barrel of it to each of my other generals! ~ Abraham Lincoln

If I were to command a general to turn into a seagull, and if the general did not obey, that would not be the general's fault. It would be mine. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

The women I know with strong personalities, the ones who might have become generals or the heads of companies if they were men, become teachers. Teaching is a calling, too. And I've always thought that teachers in their way are holy
angles leading their flocks out of the darkness. ~ Jeannette Walls

Television should be the last mass communication medium to be naively designed and put into the world without a surgeon-general's warning. ~ Alan Kay

Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck. The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these same masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anyone else. To stress this guilt on the part of masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by the genuine freedom-fighters; the latter the attitude held by the power-thirsty politicians. ~ Wilhelm Reich

T's one of history's many valuable lessons: the foot soldiers tend to be the casualties in any conflict, not the generals. ~ Mark Mills

'Calcutta is a pot of honey' means that in the first half of the nineteenth century, before the society became truly Victorian in feeling and tone, Bengal was a place to make money. The governor-generals returned to England rich men. It was a bountiful, lush, prosperous, easy place to make a fortune - in coal, in jute, and particularly cloth. ~ Susanna Moore

The quality of authors determines the quality of books.
The quality of musicians determines the quality of songs.
The quality of artists determines the quality of paintings.
The quality of architects determines the quality of buildings.

The quality of generals determines the quality of warriors.
The quality of preachers determines the quality of sermons.
The quality of scientists determines the quality of inventions.
The quality of leaders determines the quality of followers.

The quality of scholars determines the quality of lectures.
The quality of teachers determines the quality of students.
The quality of schools determines the quality of graduates.
The quality of graduates determines the quality of nations.

The quality of plants determines the quality of air.
The quality of air determies the quality of animals.
The quality of animals determines the quality of food.
The quality of food determines the quality of the planet. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Military commanders choose to overlook the Kenyan proverb that proclaims the power of the flea--"A flea can trouble a lion more than the lion can harm a flea." Most generals would rather be lions than fleas. ~ William R. Polk

In the old days, the general's ribbons / & medals rainbowed across his chest, / & if he were interrogating himself, / by now, blood would be on the walls. ~ Yusef Komunyakaa

Never get a reputation for a small perfection if you are trying for fame in a loftier area. The world can only judge by generals, and it sees that those who pay considerable attention to minutiae seldom have their minds occupied with great things. ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Good generals select intelligent officers, thoughtful advisors, and brave subordinates. They oversee their troops like a fierce tiger with wings. ~ Zhuge Liang

Years later, the plain-speaking Truman would explain: "I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the president . . . . I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail. ~ Douglas Brinkley

Only then, after all these things had been accomplished within the first couple of hours of the coup, could the messages, which had been drawn up and filed, be sent out by radio, telephone and telegraph to the commanders of the Home Army in other cities and to the top generals commanding the troops at the front and in the occupied zones, announcing that Hitler was dead and that a new anti-Nazi government had been formed in Berlin. The revolt would have to be over - and achieved - within twenty-four hours and the new government firmly installed. Otherwise the vacillating generals might have second thoughts. Goering and Himmler might be able to rally them, and a civil war would ensue. In that case the fronts would cave in and the very chaos and collapse which the plotters wished to prevent would become inevitable. ~ William L. Shirer

The movers and shakers on our planet, aren't the billionaires and generals, they are the incredible numbers of people around the world filled with love for neighbor and for the earth who are resisting, remaking, restoring, renewing and revitalising. ~ Bill McKibben

Arin heard the door to the barracks creak. The sound brought him immediately to his feet, for only one person would come to his cell this late at night. Then he heard the first heavy footfall, and his hands slackened around the metal bars. The footsteps coming were not hers. They belonged to someone big. Solid, slow. Probably a man.
Torchlight pulsed toward Arin's cell. When he saw who carried it, he pulled away from the bars. He saw a child's nightmare come to life.
The general set the torch in a sconce. He stared, taking in Arin's fresh bruises, his height, his features. The general's frown deepened.
This man didn't look like Kestrel. He was all mass and muscle. But Arin found her in the way her father lifted his chin, and his eyes held the same dangerous intelligence.
"Is she all right?" Arin said. When he received no response, he asked again in Valorian. And because he had already damned himself with a question he couldn't bear not to ask, Arin said something he had sworn he would never say. "Sir."
"She's fine."
A feeling flowed into Arin, something like sleep or the sudden absence of pain.
"If I had my choice, I would kill you," said the general, "but that would cause more talk. You'll be sold. Not right away, because I don't want to be seen reacting to a scandal. But soon.
"I'll be spending some time at home, and I will be watching you. If you come near my daughter, I will forget my better judgment. I will have you torn limb from ~ Marie Rutkoski

I worked for the troops my entire time in the United States Armed Forces because we know in the United States Armed Forces that it's not the generals and the colonels that win battles, it's the soldiers: it's the people at the front, the mechanics with their wrenches, the drivers moving the logistics back in the rear. ~ Wesley Clark

In just two years, CSAS ignited the flame Grandmother lit years before. Carl would never succeed in his attempts to extinguish it. But his parental authority was able to keep it dormant and unthreatening for several years. At Ooltewah High School, I was like a lion forced into captivity after a liberating romp in the jungle. Nothing challenged me. Nothing motivated me. Nothing moved me. My claustrophobia itched to the point where clawing at my own skin seemed to be my only method of relief. With no social outlets and no intellectual nourishment, I caved into self-destruction. My bulimia amplified from throwing up obligatory family dinners to driving to grocery stores, Dollar Generals, and gas stations, shoving junk food into my purse in between security camera reach, devouring the calories in the corners of desolate parking lots, and scurrying into remote public restrooms in the outskirts of town. My knees would rest on the cold, sticky tile floors as I wrapped my arms around bleach-scented toilets as if embracing an old friend. ~ Maggie Georgiana Young

Generals were early to bed, early to rise, always brushing their teeth after every meal, never skipping a morning shave. All they had to do was sit back in Nagano drawing up their battle plans. One order from them and us mortals on the front lines would move like pawns across a chessboard to our grisly fates. I'd like to see just one of them here with us in the mud. We had our own rules down here. Which is probably why they stayed away. If one of them showed, I'd see to it a stray bullet put them on the Killed In Action list. ~ Hiroshi Sakurazaka

Each restorational advancement of the Army of the Lord has established denominational forts that are given responsibility to maintain the purity and power of that truth ... New recruits are now being drafted and trained and older soldiers and generals are being put through intensified training for the next advancement of the Church Army. They are being purified by the Baptism of Fire ... Are you ready? Where do you start? What will you do? A new government must be established, a new way of life for those millions of people. You are now ready to rule and reign on your overcomer's throne! ~ Bill Hamon

And how would he learn his history now? Imagine growing up in a world where only generals and geniuses, empires and companies, had histories, not your own town or grandfather, house or Samantha - none of the things you'd loved. ~ William H Gass

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

Americans have seen fit to elect twelve generals to the U.S. presidency, but even before there was a United States of America generals ruled the earth. Take ~ Winston Groom

The ground must be a general's best friend, or it becomes his worst enemy. ~ Joe Abercrombie

For the past decade, U.S. generals have dominated the military effort against the insurgency. Washington has chosen Afghanistan's leaders. Americans have conceived, planned, financed, and overseen economic projects in which Afghans have played only supporting roles. And yet there has never been a possibility that the United States and its allies could win the war against the Taliban. Only Afghans themselves can do that. ~ Anonymous

In two thousand years all our generals and politicians may be forgotten, but Einstein and Madame Curie and Bernard Shaw and Stravinsky will keep the memory of our age alive. ~ Anthony Burgess

I've laid out a plan for how we keep people safe here at home, and I've laid out a plan of how we wage war and win by denying ISIS territory overseas. We must deny them their territory because the territory that they've conquered because Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama declared victory in Iraq and against every generals advice withdrew all of our troops, leaving a vacuum, weaponry, territory for ISIS to conquer, that territory, their caliphate, is that from which they draw legitimacy, potency, credibility. We have to deny them that territory. ~ Carly Fiorina

The essence of a general's job is to assist in developing a clear sense of purpose to keep the junk from getting in the way of important things. ~ Walter F. Ulmer

Timing: The alpha and omega of aerialists, jugglers, actors, diplomats, publicists, generals, prizefighters, revolutionists, financiers, dictators, lovers. ~ Marlene Dietrich

Here's the latest from the Pentagon
the generals are worried that the White House is spreading itself thin by trying to fight a war on two fronts; Afghanistan and Fox News. ~ Jay Leno

With such incentives to brave deeds, and with the trust that God is with us, your generals will lead you confidently to the combat - assured of success. ________ General commanding ~ Shelby Foote

Generals who can write always make me nervous. ~ Ben Bradlee

In any case, this was a deep human prejudice. Human beings to find a central command in any organization. States had governments. Corporations had CEOs. Schools had principals. Armies had generals. Human beings tended to believe that without central command, chaos would overwhelm the organization and nothing significant could be accomplished. ~ Michael Crichton

Do you know we are being led to Slaughters by placid admirals & that fat slow generals are getting Obscene on young blood Do you know we are ruled by t.v. ~ Jim Morrison

When I warned them [the French] that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken. Some chicken! Some neck! ~ Winston Churchill

Generals trump Majors," Ursan said.
"True, but do princes trump generals?"
"I attacked him."
"Ryne's not the type to hold a grudge."
Ursan considered. "Isn't he a king? Both his parents died"
"Technically, yes. But he hasn't assumed the title."
"Neither has Prince Kerrick," Ursan said. " Don't you find that odd?"
"Not with Kerrick. He loved his father very much. I think it's still too painful for him to assume the title. Plus he hasn't been home in years."
Ursan remained quiet until we reached his tent. "Prince Kerrick's a forest mage. Which means his eyes change colour with the seasons. Right?"
"Yes."
He stared at me for a moment. "Lucky guy." Ursan ducked into his tent. ~ Maria V. Snyder

This is what the human story is, not the emperors and the generals and their wars, but the nameless actions of people who are never written down, the good they do for others passed on like a blessing, just doing for strangers what your mother did for you, or not doing what she always spoke against. And all that carries forward and makes us what we are. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

I've interviewed presidents and royalty, rock stars and movie stars, famous generals and captains of industry; I've had front row seats at Super Bowls, World Series, and Olympic Games; my books have been on best-seller lists, and my marriage is a long-running success. ~ Tom Brokaw

People make the mistake of assuming far too many things about armies,' Lefevre told me one evening. 'They assume, for a start, that generals know what they are doing and know what is going on. They assume that orders pass down from top to bottom in a smooth and regulated fashion. And above all they assume that wars start only when people decide to start them.' 'You are going to tell me that is not the case?' 'Wars begin when they are ready, when humanity needs a bloodletting. Kings and politicians and generals have little say in it. You can feel it in the air when one is brewing. There is a tension and nervousness on the face of the least soldier. They can smell it coming in a way politicians cannot. The desire to hurt and destroy spreads over a region and over the troops. And then the generals can only hope to have the vaguest notion of what they are doing. ~ Iain Pears

Some of the generals are saying, 'We're making progress. We are clearing an area.' But you really don't defeat the Taliban by clearing an area. They move. ~ Colin Powell

Why did the generals who have been so ready to term me a complaisant and incompetent yes-man fail to secure my removal? Was that all that difficult? No, that wasn't it; the truth was that nobody would have been ready to replace me, because each one knew that he would end up just as much a wreck as I. ~ Wilhelm Keitel

Official Washington cannot tell the American people that the real purpose of its gargantuan military expenditures and belligerent interventions is to make the world safe for General Motors, General Electric, General Dynamics, and all the other generals. ~ Michael Parenti

Let the Kez come," Tamas roared. "Let them send their greatest generals after us. Let them stack the odds against us. Let them come upon us with all their fury, because these hounds at our heels will soon know we are lions! ~ Brian McClellan

Success in past U.S. conflicts has not been strictly the result of military leadership but rather the judgment of the president in choosing generals and setting broad strategy. ~ Robert Dallek

The money, as promised, was in the trunk of the general's official ~ Daniel Silva

... it's just something women used to say when they sent their men off to war. Come back with your shield, or on it."
"On your shield?" said Nobby. ""You mean like ... sledging, sort of thing?"
"Like dead," said Angua. "It meant come back a winner or not at all."
"Well, I always came back with my shield," said Nobby. "No problem there."
"Nobby," sighed Colon, "you used to come back with your shield, everyone else's shield, a sack of teeth and fifteen pairs of still-warm boots. On a cart."
"We-el, no point in going to war unless you're on the winning side," said Nobby, sticking the white feather in his helmet.
"Nobby, you was always on the winning side, the reason bein', you used to lurk aroun' the edges to see who was winning and then pull the right uniform off'f some poor dead sod. I used to hear where the generals kept an eye on what you were wearin' so they'd know how the battle was going. ~ Terry Pratchett

Anyone can act strategically, it doesn't take much to make a plan. The skill of a general is his or her ability to react strategically when plans fail. ~ Lance Conrad

The general's daughter? We'd be fools not to. You talk about her as if she's made of spun glass. Know what I see? Steel. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Vivas to those who have fail'd!
And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!
And to those themselves who sank in the sea!
And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes!
And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known! ~ Walt Whitman

You certainly remember this scene from dozens of films: a boy and a girl are running hand in hand in a beautiful spring (or summer) landscape. Running, running, running and laughing. By laughing the two runners are proclaiming to the whole world, to audiences in all the movie theaters: "We're happy, we're glad to be in the world, we're in agreement with being!" It's a silly scene, a cliche, but it expresses a basic human attitude: serious laughter, laughter "beyond joking."
All churches, all underwear manufacturers, all generals, all political parties, are in agreement about that kind of laughter, and all of them rush to put the image of the two laughing runners on the billboards advertising their religion, their products, their ideology, their nation, their sex, their dishwashing powder. ~ Milan Kundera

Right, because they're looking at also organizing the Sunni tribes up around Mosul to take back that city as well. That's the second largest city in Iraq. That's going to be a very, very tough fight. And the Shia militias were not used in Ramadi, and we're told by the Iraqi generals that they don't want any Shia militias up in Mosul, either, to take back that city. So - but again, that's going to be a very, very tough fight. ~ Tom Bowman

It wasn't until she had almost reached its lights that she heard another rider in the hills behind her.
Ice slid down Kestrel's spine. Fear, that the rider was Arin.
Fear, at her sudden hope that it was.
She pulled Javelin to a stop and swung to the ground. Better to go on foot through the narrow streets to the harbor. Stealth was more important now than speed.
Beating hooves echoed in the hills. Closer.
She hugged Javelin hard around the neck, then pushed him away while she still could bear to do it. She slapped his rump in an order to head home. Whether he'd go to her villa or Arin's, she couldn't say. But he left, and might draw the other rider after him if she was indeed being pursued.
She slipped into the city shadows.
And it was magic. It was as if the Herrani gods had turned on their own people. No one noticed Kestrel skulking along walls or heard her cracking the thin ice of a puddle. No late-night wanderer looked in her face and saw a Valorian. No one saw the general's daughter. Kestrel made it to the harbor, down to the docks.
Where Arin waited.
His breath heaved white clouds into the air. His hair was black with sweat. It hadn't mattered that Kestrel had been ahead of him on the horse path. Arin had been able to run openly through the city while she had crept through alleys.
Their eyes met, and Kestrel felt utterly defenseless.
But she had a weapon. He didn't, not that she could see. Her hand instinctively fell ~ Marie Rutkoski

I made all my generals out of mud. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

As I finished my rice, I sketched out the plot of a pornographic adventure film called The Massage Room. Sirien, a young girl from northern Thailand, falls hopelessly in love with Bob, an American student who winds up in the massage parlor by accident, dragged there by his buddies after a fatefully boozy evening. Bob doesn't touch her, he's happy just to look at her with his lovely, pale-blue eyes and tell her about his hometown - in North Carolina, or somewhere like that. They see each other several more times, whenever Sirien isn't working, but, sadly, Bob must leave to finish his senior year at Yale. Ellipsis. Sirien waits expectantly while continuing to satisfy the needs of her numerous clients. Though pure at heart, she fervently jerks off and sucks paunchy, mustached Frenchmen (supporting role for Gerard Jugnot), corpulent, bald Germans (supporting role for some German actor). Finally, Bob returns and tries to free her from her hell - but the Chinese mafia doesn't see things in quite the same light. Bob persuades the American ambassador and the president of some humanitarian organization opposed to the exploitation of young girls to intervene (supporting role for Jane Fonda). What with the Chinese mafia (hint at the Triads) and the collusion of Thai generals (political angle, appeal to democratic values), there would be a lot of fight scenes and chase sequences through the streets of Bangkok. At the end of the day, Bob carries her off. But in the penultimate scene, Siri ~ Michel Houellebecq

Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other-that man, that woman, that child is my brother or my sister. If everyone could see the image of God in his neighbor, do you think we would still need tanks and generals? ~ Mother Teresa

More people perish than want to. Death comes running with astonishing speed, strikes his victims with marvelous accuracy. These include generals, doctors, governesses, soldiers, policemen, ministers. None of them pass away peacefully, as it says in the newspapers. Their executions are violent enough. ~ Robert Walser

The Roman envoys replied that they would go where their own generals led them, not where bidden by their enemies. ~ Livy

Slavery happened. That flag stands for segregation. We have monuments to Civil War generals and slave owners, as well as preserved plantations. But we have only one slavery museum, and that was built by a private citizen. We have no national or federal slavery museum. There is no government-funded slavery museum. A proposal to put one in Virginia came through in 2001 and went unfunded and failed. Another one in Richmond reached a similar fate. This is absolutely shameful. ~ Trae Crowder

A few regular troops from old France, weakened by hunger and sickness, who, when fresh, were unable to withstand the British soldiers, are their general's chief dependence. ~ James Wolfe

Many generals believe that they have done everything as soon as they have issued orders, and they order a great deal because they find many abuses. This is a false principle; proceeding in this fashion, they will never reestablish discipline ~ Maurice De Saxe

1. Bangladesh.... In 1971 ... Kissinger overrode all advice in order to support the Pakistani generals in both their civilian massacre policy in East Bengal and their armed attack on India from West Pakistan.... This led to a moral and political catastrophe the effects of which are still sorely felt. Kissinger's undisclosed reason for the 'tilt' was the supposed but never materialised 'brokerage' offered by the dictator Yahya Khan in the course of secret diplomacy between Nixon and China.... Of the new state of Bangladesh, Kissinger remarked coldly that it was 'a basket case' before turning his unsolicited expertise elsewhere. ~ William M. Arkin

After investigating the UFO phenomenon all over the world, after studying thousands of pages of released government documents, and interviewing eyewitnesses and insiders, including generals, intelligence officers, cosmonauts and astronauts, military and commercial pilots, I do not have the shadow of a doubt anymore that we are indeed visited by extraterrestrial intelligences. The evidence just does not allow another conclusion. ~ Michael Hesemann

I'd like to have two armies: one for display with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering generals, and dear little regimental officers who would be deeply concerned over their general's bowel movements or their colonel's piles, an army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country. ~ Jean Larteguy

Was it just fear? the voices wonder. We were fearful in the best of times; how could we cope with the worst? So we found the tallest walls and poured ourselves behind them. We kept pouring until we were biggest and strongest, elected the greatest generals and found the most weapons, thinking all this maximalism would somehow generate happiness. But nothing so obvious could ever work. ~ Isaac Marion

In fact, Lincoln and Stanton had already heard similar complaints. After dispatching investigators to look into General Grant's behavior, however, they had concluded that his drinking did not affect his unmatched ability to plan, execute, and win battles. A memorable story circulated that when a delegation brought further rumors of Grant's drinking to the president, Lincoln declared that if he could find the brand of whiskey Grant used, he would promptly distribute it to the rest of his generals! ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

To study the laws of history we must completely change the subject of our observation, must leave aside kings, ministers, and generals, and study the common, infinitesimally small elements by which the masses are moved. ~ Leo Tolstoy

A defensive war is apt to betray us into too frequent detachment. Those generals who have had but little experience attempt to protect every point, while those who are better acquainted with their profession, having only the capital object in view, guard against a decisive blow, and acquiesce in small misfortunes to avoid greater. ~ Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

We tend to mix genders when we arrange ourselves around a table for meetings. A sort of accommodation is made by the men for the women: they make space for us. they are ever-so-slightly polite, we are ever-so-slightly grateful. When we stand up at the end of a meeting, we all give ourselves a metaphorical shake that is only partly the relief of having concluded our business: we are all released from the effort of fitting ourselves together.
When men speak in these meetings, women relax; when women speak, men grow tense. I have the impression that they never know what a woman is going to say, whereas they are reasonably sure what a man will address himself to and how he will do it. So are the women; for them, too, men tend to be predictable. Women listen to women with a different kind of attention, and part of it may be loyalty to our gender; we want all of us to do well, as if we have the esprit de corps of subalterns among generals. ~ Anne Truitt

We all recognize grief in moments that should be celebrations; it is the salt in the pudding. Didn't Roman generals hire slaves to march beside them in a triumphant parade and remind them that they too would die? Even your narrator, one morning after what should have been a happy occasion, was found shivering at the end of the bed (spouse: "I really wish you weren't crying right now"). Don't little children, awakened one morning and told, "Now you're five!" - don't they wail at the universe's descent into chaos? The sun slowly dying, the spiral arm spreading, the molecules drifting apart second by second toward our inevitable heat death - shouldn't we all wail to the stars? ~ Andrew Sean Greer

You differ from a great man in only one respect: the great man was once a very little man, but he developed one important quality: he recognized the smallness and narrowness of his thoughts and actions. Under the pressure of some task that meant a great deal to him, he learned to see how his smallness, his pettiness endangered his happiness. In other words, a great man knows when and in what way he is a little man. A little man does not know he is little and is afraid to know. He hides his pettiness and narrowness behind illusions of strength and greatness, someone else's strength and greatness. He's proud of his great generals but not of himself. He admires an idea he has not had, not one he has had. The less he understands something, the more firmly he believes in it. And the better he understands an idea, the less he believes in it. ~ Wilhelm Reich

I've decided that the political context is such that the only way reform will finally come about in the Russian military is that the deterioration goes beyond the point to which these old generals can stand up there and resist it. ~ William Odom

Every day I would run to the library to get new books. Reading was a passion: I wanted to understand life. I read Dostoevsky and Brehm, Jules Verne and Turgenev, Dickens and the Zhivopisnoye Obozreniye; and the more I read, th emore I doubted everything. Lies surrounded me on all sides; one moment I wanted to run off to the Indian jungle, the next to throw a bomb at the governor-general's house on Tverskaya, the next to hang myself. ~ Ilya Ehrenburg

In view of my services in Africa, I have the chance of dying by poison. Two generals have brought it with them. It is fatal in three seconds. If I take the poison, none of the usual steps will be taken against my family; that is, against you. They will also leave my staff alone. ~ Erwin Rommel

Well, I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Hullo, commandant,' I said, 'how's the General?'
'Which general?' he asked with a shy grin.
'Surely in the Caodaist faith,' I said, 'all generals are reconciled. ~ Graham Greene

Both Bush as well as Tony Blair are undermining an idea [the United Nations]. Is this because the secretary general of the United Nations [Ghanaian Kofi Annan] is now a black man? They never did that when secretary generals were white. ~ Nelson Mandela

15Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave [5] and free, p hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 q calling to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of r him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17for s the great day of their wrath has come, and t who can stand? ~ Anonymous

Just as war is too important to leave it to the generals, science and technology are too important to leave in the hands of the experts. ~ Sheldon Rampton

Brains will always conquer brawn, in the end. The soldiers can flex their muscles all they want, but the well-thought-out tactics of the generals are what win the war. ~ Patrick Hall

The president receives an inspector general's report that the Office of Personnel Management could be hacked into; they had antiquated firewalls; 23 million files have been - are in the hands of the Chinese allegedly, including, by the way, members of the press, it turns out, last week. Maybe that's the only part that's good news, so that you guys can get a feel for what it's like now to see this type of attack. ~ Jeb Bush

She was not light, but she was not as heavy as she should be. Her bones should be made of iron, for what else was fit to support her bravado? It would shame generals. Emperors. Professional pirates. ~ Meredith Duran

It is not possible for a single person to be working outstanding miracles, signs and wonders which millions of other Nigerians cannot do and for such a person to be an agent of Satan. They - the God's generals - should combine forces and deliver such a satanic person or get rid of him. ~ T. B. Joshua

For long, history was mainly political history, and historical narrative was confined to an account of the most important crises in political life, or to an account of wars and great generals. ~ Michael Rostovtzeff

Iraq had forced massive changes to the Army's equipment, training, and strategy. But the most important legacy of the war had been cultural. The war had upended most of the service's basic assumption about how it should fight, undermining the Powell Doctrine with its emphasis on short, intense wars not replacing it with anything nearly so straightforward. Chiarelli wasn't sure he could predict what the next war would look like. But he knew what kind of officers would be needed. He wanted an officer corps that argued, debated, and took intellectual risks. Even that laudable goal was far from accepted within the Army. ~ David Cloud

It is not the business of generals to shoot one another. ~ Arthur Wellesley

When we're not a party, we sometimes file as amicus, as friend of the court, 25, 30 times a term, sometimes more. And in each of those cases, we've got to decide what position the government's going to take. And that is the solicitor general's job to make that decision. ~ Donald Verrilli Jr.

I think you'd make a wonderful teacher. You have a strong personality. The women I know with strong personalities, the ones who might have become generals or the heads of companies if they were men, become teachers. ~ Jeannette Walls

There could be no doubt, so I was finally forced to decide, that the longer one dealt with them, the more one developed the habit of treating generals like members of the opposite sex; specifically, like ladies no longer young, who therefore deserve extra courtesy and attention; indeed, whose every whim must be given thought. ~ Anthony Powell

Hitler had the willpower of a demon and he needed it. If he didn't have such a strong willpower he couldn't have achieved anything. Don't forget, if Hitler had not lost the war, if he did not have to fight against the combination of big powers like England, America, and Russia - each one he could have conquered individually - these defendants and these generals would now be saying, 'Heil Hitler,' and would not be so damn critical. ~ Hermann Goring

The general's voice came low, so that his words were only for him and his daughter. "Kestrel," he said, "you have broken my heart. ~ Marie Rutkoski