Natalie Clifford Barney Quotes

Those who prepare for war get it.

The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

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

Hard training - easy combat; easy training - hard combat.

There is no point in hiding that before the war we mostly learned to attack, and did not pay enough attention to such an important maneuver as retreat. Now we have paid for this. It turned out that the commanders and the staff were not sufficiently prepared to prepare and execute the retreat maneuver. Now, in the second week of war, we had in fact to learn from the beginning the most difficult art - the art of the execution of retreat.

It is a fool's plan to teach a man to be a cur in peace, and think that he will be a lion in war.

Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what are we going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.

I think the President ought to bring everybody that's in American uniform back because we're headed for war.

I've always had the fantasy of doing a boot camp for a military film, at some point. I've always wanted to know what the experience is like, to feel that mounting pressure of going off to war and needing to be so present and physically aware of your body because you ultimately need to fight for your life and for your country.

General, you don't have a war plan! All you have is a kind of horrible spasm!

I think that if you don't think we're in a war that you can't win the war.

States organized for war will make war as surely as hens will lay eggs.

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.

In order to assure an adequate national defense, it is necessary - and sufficient - to be in a position in case of war to conquer the command of the air.

A barracks is meant to be a place where real soldiers were to be fed and equipped for war, not a place to settle down in or as a comfortable snuggery in which to enjoy ourselves. I hope that if ever they, our soldiers, do settle down God will burn their barracks over their heads!

If you don't believe your general, you're not going to go into battle knowing you're going to die.

Think of Iraq as "East Korea," because it was a shoot the cuffs war for the edification of Kim Jong Il to let him know we've now circled the SUVs. Iraq was about breaking adhesions, getting lean, staying frosty - in short, getting ready for the big Doug MacArthur Memorial Cage Match to come.

In time of revolution, with perseverance and courage, a soldier should think nothing impossible.

And down the dunes a thousand guns lie crouched,Unseen, beside the flood -Like tigers in some Orient jungle crouchedThat wait and watch for blood.Meanwhile, through streets still echoing with trade,Walk grave and thoughtful men,Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's bladeAs lightly as the pen.

You take it from me, we are losing the war because we can salute too well.

We should lay up in peace what we shall need in war.

Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.

We did not think that [Egyptian President] Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to Sinai on May 14 would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.

Far from making peace, wars invariably serve as classrooms and laboratories where men and techniques and states of mind are prepared for the next war.