George S. Patton Quotes

Strategy is the most important department of the art of war, and strategical skill is the highest and rarest function of military genius.

We were lavish of blood in those days, and it was thought to be a grand thing to charge a battery or an earth-work lined with infantry.

Renown awaits the commander who first restores artillery to its prime importance on the battlefield.

It is imperative to contest all factions for complete victory, so the army is not garrisoned and the profit can be total. This is the law of strategic siege.

From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don't give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder we push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that.

Our poetry emulates the recent progress in military strategy: Our army's strength is the foot soldiers.

When our new armies are ready it seems folly to send them to Flanders, where they will chew barbed wire, or be wasted in futile frontal attacks.

War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end.

The military weapon is but one of the means that serve the purposes of war: one out of the assortment which grand strategy can employ.

The American way of war is to build an army, then another, then a third, while building fleets. If the war is still on at that point we smash.

Only great and general battles can produce great results

In many situations that seemed desperate, the artillery has been a most vital factor.

It's unclear how air strikes on our part can succeed unless the Iraqi army is willing to fight, and that's uncertain given the fact that several Iraqi army divisions have melted away.

In a campaign against more than one state or army, it is more fruitful to concentrate first against the weaker partner than to attempt the overthrow of the stronger in the belief that the latter's defeat will automatically involve the collapse of the others.

There is but one means to extenuate the effects of enemy fire: it is to develop a more violent fire oneself.

Generals who save troops for the next day are always beaten.

If you are going to use military force, then you ought to use overwhelming military force. Use too much and deliberately use too much; you'll save lives, not only your own, but the enemy's too.

An army should always be so distributed that its parts can aid each other and combine to produce the maximum possible concentration of force at one place, while the minimum force necessary is used elsewhere to prepare the success of the concentration.

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

Der Krieg ist nichts als eine Fortsetzung des politischen Verkehrs mit Einmischung anderer Mittel. War is merely the continuation of policy with the admixture of other means.

A serious pacifist approach can't win wars against enemies whose only program is violence. That doesn't mean I think the US has fought terrorists so wisely most of the time since 9/11. But there are some enemies that need to be destroyed by force lest they destroy much much more.

The secret of war lies in the communications.

Perhaps my dynamite plants will put an end to war sooner than your [pacifist] congresses. On the day two army corps can annihilate each other in one second all civilized nations will recoil from war in horror.

When the enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops, harass; when he tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue.

To fight in another man's armour is something more than to be influenced by his style of fighting.