Joseph-Simon Gallieni Quotes

I came from such a simple origin, without any great privilege, and I would say I also wanted to make a mark. It wasn't until I was about 15 that I appeared in a race.

Nothing is so common as to imitate one's enemies, and to use their weapons.

The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies.

You can make something out of nothing. I proved that with my career, making it out of the city that I'm from.

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.

If you are different, or you have minimum possibilities, you can still succeed. I am living proof of that.

I'm living proof you can excel regardless of where you come from.

Most of wars or military coups or invasions are done in the name of democracy against democracy.

Dreams do come true, even for someone who couldn't speak English and never had a music lesson or much of an education.

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.

The Military shall be subordinate to the Civil authority

A member of either House who joins the armed forces, must in the main be his own judge as to what is proper and appropriate. No-one can restrain a member for doing his full duty as a member of the legislature, and he is under no reproach for doing so. Of course if he offers to take active military service and is accepted this must be some restraint upon his political activities, but how much is I think, for him to say.

Today the situation is restored. We are masters everywhere and those who wanted to attack us are now wondering how to defend themselves.

The Army will hear nothing of politics from me, and in return I expect to hear nothing of politics from the Army.

Turning a campaign around when you’re behind is like pushing a wet noodle up a hill with your nose.

The era of conquest is definitely closed.

They have the troops; we only have the arguments.

If you drop a perpendicular from the frontier of Tunis, through Lake Chad to the Congo, you could say that the greatest part of the territories bounded by this line and the sea … are French, or destined to be included in France’s sphere of influence. We have a vast domain which it is for us to colonize and make fruitful …

Organs of military command and political organs should try not to interfere on their respective spheres.

... you may be sure there will be no jingo nonsense under my administration.

What my country needs is a safety valve for her surplus energies …. Establishing a Belgian colony in Africa will not only develop our country’s commercial interests but to raise the morale of the army and raise the merchant navy which we lack …. It is time that Belgium takes her part in the great work of civilization, following in the footsteps of England.

Both Republicans and Democrats want to use our children as cannon fodder in order to police the world.

Though it has been said … that a Standing-Army is necessary for the dignity and safety of America, yet freedom revolts at the idea, when … Despot, may draw out his dragoons to suppress the murmurs of a few, who may yet cherish those sublime principles …. Standing armies have been the nursery of vice and the bane of liberty from the Roman legions to the establishment of the artful Ximenes, and from the ruin of the Cortes of Spain, to the planting of the British cohorts in the capitals of America.

We now live not in an economic order or a political order, but in a political economy that is closely linked with military institutions and decisions.

This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. It cannot be otherwise. If now there is not a communist government in Paris, this is only because Russia has no an army which can reach Paris in 1945.