Themistocles Quotes

The culminating manifestation of naval force in the history of the world.

Our present control of the sea is so absolute that it is sometimes taken for granted.

From knowledge, sea power. Ex Scientia Tridens

Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his; he owns it.

Let us build a navy as big as hers and do as we please.

England, so long mistress of the sea, Where winds and waves confess her sovereignty, Her ancient triumphs yet on high shall bear And reign the sovereign of the conquered air.

Set in this stormy Northern sea, Queen of these restless fields of tide, England! what shall men say of thee, Before whose feet the worlds divide?

It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.

Events of October 1962 indicated, as they had all through history, that control of the sea means security. Control of the seas can mean peace. Control of the seas can mean victory. The United States must control the seas if it is to protect your security.

Whoever commands the sea, commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.

In this era of uncertainty and conflict, the United States - blessed with the world's strongest military, most ingenious economy, and most tolerant society - remains a model and leader to the world.

The U.S. might enjoy overwhelming military advantage, but its relative economic power, which in the long run is almost invariably decisive, is in decline. The interregnum after the Cold War, far from being the prelude to a new American age, was bearing the signs of what is now very visible: the emergence of a multipolar world.

Anyone who has seen the auto factories in Detroit and the oil fields in Texas knows that Japan lacks the national power for a naval race with America.

We have the largest economy and the strongest military in the world. Our core values of freedom and opportunity are ascendant around the globe.

In my opinion the greatest advantage we can at present expect from our Navy; for at this early period We can not expect to have a Navy to cope with the British.

The definition of superpower cannot mean only military might anymore.

We cannot menace the peace of a single continental hamlet no matter how great our supreme navy may become but the … whole fortunes of our race and empire … would perish and be utterly swept away if our naval supremacy were to be impaired. It is the British navy which makes Great Britain a great power.

Without sea-power Germany's position in the world resembled a mollusk without a shell

The maintenance of naval supremacy is our foundation not only of the empire but of our freedom and our lives.

When Britain first, at Heaven's command, Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sung this strain: 'Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.'

It has been said that, in our present state of unpreparedness, a trans-isthmian canal will be a military disaster to the United States, and especially to the Pacific coast. When the canal is finished the Atlantic seaboard will be neither more nor less exposed than it now is; it will merely share with the country at large the increased danger of foreign complications with inadequate means to meet them. The danger of the Pacific coast will be greater by so much as the way between it and Europe is shortened through a passage which the stronger maritime power can control. The danger lies not merely in the greater facility for dispatching a hostile squadron from Europe, but also in the fact that a more powerful fleet than formerly can be maintained on that coast by a European power

Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy.

England is not interested in anything but naval dominance and their possessions in America.

There is a perception across the Middle East that America is weakened. I believe the perception is wrong. The United States remains the world's mightiest military, economic and diplomatic power by far, with reach and abilities beyond rival.

When the enemies' land force is once conquered and expelled from the continent, our Marine will rise as if by enchantment and become, within the memory of persons now living, the wonder and envy of the world.