George S. Patton Quotes

If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds.... I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.

In strife who inquires whether stratagem or courage was used?

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.

If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.

War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. ... To move swiftly, strike vigorously, and secure all the fruits of victory is the secret of successful war.

It is much better to tempt fortune where it can favor you than to see your certain ruin by not tempting it.

What valor were it, when a cur doth grin, for one to thrust his hand between his teeth, when he might spurn him with his foot away?

War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man.

If the bubble reputation can be obtained only at the cannon's mouth, I am willing to go there for it, provided the cannon is empty. If it is loaded my immortal and inflexible purpose is to get over the fence and go home. My invariable practice in war has been to bring out of every fight two-thirds more men than when I went in. This seems to me Napoleonic in its grandeur.

There's a fine line between audacity and idiocy.

One hundred only, Lord Earl. But judge us not by our number. Rather, watch the numbers of dead we leave behind.

Chess is a more highly symbolic game, but the aggressions are therefore even more frankly represented in the play. It probably began as a war game; that is, the representation of a miniature battle between the forces of two kingdoms

Defense is the first act of war.

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.

It seems to me the worst possible concept, militarily, that we would simply stay there, resisting aggression, so-called...it seems to me that the way to "resist aggression" is to destroy the potentialities of the aggressor to continually hit you...When you say, merely, "we are going to continue to fight aggression," that is not what the enemy is fighting for. The enemy is fighting for a very definite purpose-to destroy our forces.

There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must not be attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested, commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed.

War is sweet to them that know it not.

In civil business; what first? boldness; what second and third? boldness: and yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness.

Most men expose themselves in battle enough to save their honor, few wish to do so more than sufficiently, or than is necessary to make the design for which they expose themselves succeed.

The fate of a battle is the result of a moment, of a thought: the hostile forces advance with various combinations, they attack each other and fight for a certain time; the critical moment arrives, a mental flash decides, and the least reserve accomplishes the object.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination. The bloody solution of the crisis, the effort for the destruction of the enemy's forces, is the first-born son of war. Only great and general battles can produce great results. Blood is the price of victory.

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

The aggressive spirit, the offensive, is the chief thing everywhere in war, and the air is no exception.

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

It is imperative to master the principles of the art of war and learn to be unmoved in mind even in the heat of the battle.