Bruce Catton Quotes

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.

History knows no greater display of courage than that shown by the people of the Soviet Union.

Young people are so brave when they go to fight.

Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood.

The sense of war, the extraordinary bravery of the Allied armies, the numbers, the losses, the real suffering that disappears in time and commemorative oratory, are not marked out in any red guidebook of the emotions, but they are present if you look.

It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.

There is no glory in war, yet from the blackness of its history, there emerge vivid colours of human character and courage. Those who risked their lives to help their friends.

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.

For one thing, I don't think that anybody in any war thinks of themselves as a hero.

I don't think that anybody in any war thinks of themselves as a hero. The minute anybody presumes that they are heroes, they get their boots taken away from them and buried in the sand.

The men and women who serve in our military have won for us every hour we live in freedom, sometimes at the expense of the very hours of the lifetimes they had hoped to live.

Going to war was the only unselfish thing I have ever done for humanity.

A short, glorious life in service of a greater good - say, the life of the Spartans at Thermopylae, or the pilots in the Battle of Britain, of whom Winston Churchill said 'Never have so many owed so much to so few,' - that is worth praising. But for glory alone? I think not.

The selfless actions of these heroes have removed them from their families, businesses and homeland to fight, so that others may experience the liberty awaiting our troops upon safe return to America.

Let's drink to the spirit of gallantry and courage that made a strange Heaven out of unbelievable Hell, and let's drink to the hope that one day this country of ours, which we love so much, will find dignity and greatness and peace again.

The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.

The true legacy of 9-11 cannot be found among political leaders of the day, but in the citizen soldiers and public safety personnel who answered that day with courage and selflessness.

I have so much respect for people in the service. The mental strength it takes to do what they do is unbelievable.

I was in uniform for four years, and I know that heroism doesn't occur from taking orders, but rather from people who through their own willpower and strength are willing to sacrifice their lives for an idea.

It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.

I have gone through so many examinations of what a hero is, between the World War II stuff and the astronaut stuff.

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Surviving is the only glory in war.

Bad things do happen in the world, like war, natural disasters, disease. But out of those situations always arise stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.