Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes

In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.

He that makes a good war makes a good peace.

If you wage war, do it energetically and with severity. This is the only way to make it shorter and consequently less inhuman.

Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.

If the tanks succeed, then victory follows.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.

If men make war in slavish obedience to rules, they will fail.

Terrour ... makes short warres

The success of our surprise attack on Pearl Harbor will prove to be the Waterloo of the war to follow. For this reason the Imperial Navy is massing the cream of its strength in ships and planes to assure success.

The true lesson of the Vietnam War is: certainty of purpose and ruthlessness of execution win wars.

If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.

I give it as my fixed opinion, that but for our graduated cadets, the war between the United States and Mexico might, and probably would have lasted some four or five years, with, in its first half, more defeats than victories falling to our share; whereas, in less than two campaigns, we conquered a great country and a peace without the loss of a single battle or skirmish.

So there are five ways of knowing who will win. Those who know when to fight and when not to fight are victorious. Those who discern when to use many or few troops are victorious. Those whose upper and lower ranks have the same desire are victorious.

One makes war to win, not because it's just.

Our military superiority is so great - it's far greater than it was in the Gulf War, and the Gulf War was over in 100 hours after we bombed for 43 days. And so now they can bomb for a couple of days and then just roll into Baghdad... The odds are there's going to be a war and it's going to be not for very long.

War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war there is no substitute for victory.

Most wars are not won in a single battle.

Reducing military presence has never in history won a war.

According to my assessment, even if you have many more troops than others, how can that help you to victory?

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.

The power to wage war is the power to wage war successfully.

I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together.

In strife who inquires whether stratagem or courage was used?

It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.