George S. Patton Quotes

Our country has never started a war. Our sole objective is deterrence, the strength and capability it takes to prevent war.

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. To keep the peace, we and our allies must be strong enough to convince any potential aggressor that war could bring no benefit, only disaster.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.

Our national aims can be realized only by military means. The matter needs no further elaboration or interpretation.

There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy.

A certain degree of preparation for war ... affords also the best security for the continuance of peace.

The Mutual Security Act was intended not to fight a war but to prevent a war.

We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

Now that their long war was over, they could get on with the proper concern of all civilised nations, which is to prepare for the next one.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

We are at war, and our security as a nation depends on winning that war.

We pacifists have not ceased to point to the grave danger of armaments and to insist on their curtailment.

In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war.

We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life.

War and preparations for war have acquired a kind of legitimacy.

We cannot be both the world's leading champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war.

First and foremost arms are tools in the service of rival nations, pointing at the possibility of a future war.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.

There are no militarist adventuristic groups in USSR as among dominating classes in certain other countries where dangerous talk of "third world war" is being encouraged by foul imperialists. True supporters of peace will find real and faithful ally in USSR. This does not mean that our concern for the maintenance of our Armed Forces will diminish. Our Government and Red Army leaders are doing everything to assure that our Army is second to no other Army as regards newest types of armament.

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years … and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home … to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.

In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war.

The firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of the defenses of war.

Where are your armies; your navy? Have you money? No, sir! Rely on it, there will be, there can be, no war …

The distinction between preparations made with the intention of going to war and preparations against attack is it true distinction, clear and definite than the mind of those who build up armaments. But it is a distinction that is not obvious or certain to others. The moral is obvious: it is that that armaments lead inevitably to war.