Abraham Lincoln Quotes

The deplorable state of the Commisary and Quarter Master's Departments, and the entire Deficiency of Magazines, to supply the Southern Army, obliges me to request General Huger to be the Bearer of this Letter. His Zeal for the Public Service, anticipates my Wish, that he would be my Advocate with your Excellency and the Executive Power of the State, to supply our wants, by immediately establishing Magazines of Provisions and Forage, and properly organizing the Quarter Master General's Departments. Without these Things done, our Army is like a dead whale upon the Sea Shore — a monstrous Carcass without Life or Motion.

Bring war material with you from home, but forage on the enemy... use the conquered foe to augment one's own strength.

Leaders win through logistics. Vision, sure. Strategy, yes. But when you go to war, you need to have both toilet paper and bullets at the right place at the right time. In other words, you must win through superior logistics.

An army marches on its stomach.

The most important thing in our war preparations is to teach all our people to hate U.S. imperialism. Otherwise, we will not be able to defeat the U.S. imperialists who boast of their technological superiority.

As anyone knows who has ever had to set up a military encampment or build a village from the ground up, occupations pose staggering logistical problems.

Bogging down large armies in historically complex, dangerous areas ends in disaster.

If was, increased by a lack of railways in Russia - for bringing up supplies to our advancing troops.

We must either reduce the number of our engagements or increase the number of our troops.

We were fighting a war. We did not have time for duplicate vouchers and double-entry bookkeeping. It is a hell-fired shame for everybody [on this Congressional committee] to be trying to pick flyspecks on the greatest army the world ever knew. We did more organization despite our unpreparedness than the French and the British. What do you suppose we went to war for? We went to France to win the war [World War I] and we did it.

Militia are difficult to be collected and almost impossible to be kept in the field.... Nothing short of a regular military force will answer.

I write this letter because I wish you to believe of us (as we certainly believe of you) that we are doing the very best we can. You do not receive arms from us as fast as you need them; but it is because we have not near enough to meet all the pressing demands; and we are obliged to share around what we have, sending the larger share to the points which appear to need them most. As to Kentucky, you do not estimate that state as more important than I do; but I am compelled to watch all points

[I wonder] whether a case similar to ours is to be found: to wit, to maintain a post against the flower of the British troops for 6 months altogether, without powder, and at the end to have the army disbanded and raised within the same distance of the reinforced enemy.

Now that you're Secretary of War, what kind of an army do you think we ought to have?

I have every confidence in the ultimate success of our joint cause; but success in modern war requires something more than courage and a willingness to die: it requires careful preparation.

Striving for peace and preparing for war are incompatible with each other, and in our time more so than ever.

In war the chief incalculable is the human will, which manifests itself in resistance, which in turn lies in the province of tactics. Strategy has not to overcome resistance, except from nature. Its purpose is to diminish the possibility of resistance, and it seeks to fulfil this purpose by exploiting the elements of movement and surprise.

There is nothing more common than to find considerations of supply affecting the strategic lines of a campaign and a war.

It lies upon the people's shoulders to prepare for the war, but it lies upon the Israeli army to carry out the fight with the ultimate object of erecting the Israeli Empire.

My men can eat their belts, but my tanks have gotta have gas.

To read a lot of trash mixing the blood of war with business’s stench. To root out any happiness. To go out, and down, and on the road. To hesitate; to go on, and ahead, and back, and up the stairs, and in one’s room. On the way, to notice that the mountain is still there. To lie and sleep, deeply, heavily. To reproduce night’s sleep. To wake up, look through the window at green water, from the Bay to the mountain, and return to one’s self. To remember that war is devastating Irak. To feel pain.

If we clear the air of the fog of catchwords which surround the conduct of war, and grasp that in the human will lies the source and mainspring of all conflict, as of all other activities of man's life, it becomes clear that our object in war can only be attained by the subjugation of the opposing will. All acts, such as defeat in the field, propaganda, blockade, diplomacy, or attack on the centres of government and population, are seen to be but means to that end.

As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time. Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe - it's a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment.

In this age of inventive wonders all men have come to believe that in some genius' brain sleeps the solution of the grand problem of aerial navigation-and along with that belief is the hope that that genius will reveal his miracle before they die, and likewise a dread that he will poke off somewhere and die himself before he finds out that he has such a wonder lying dormant in his brain. We all know the air can be navigated-therefore, hurry up your sails and bladders-satisfy us-let us have peace.

We are the only nation in the world that waits till we get into a war before we start getting ready for it.