P. D. James Quotes

Most wars are not won in a single battle.

War is a serious game in which a man risks his reputation, his troops, and his country. A sensible man will search himself to know whether or not he is fitted for the trade.

I would have fought in WW2, so I wasn't a pacifist in the broader sense. I prefer to be a pacifist, but I think there are exceptions and times to defend yourself or your country, but that war wasn't one of them.

Wars are not won by evacuations.

One makes war to win, not because it's just.

It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.

Every combat is the bloody and destructive measuring of the strength of forces, physical and moral; whoever at the close has the greatest amount of both left is the conqueror.

I do not have to tell you who won the war. You know, the artillery did.

In strife who inquires whether stratagem or courage was used?

The idea that a war can be won by standing on the defensive and waiting for the enemy to attack is a dangerous fallacy, which owes its inception to the desire to evade the price of victory.

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

Are there not other alternatives than sending our armies to chew barbed wire in Flanders. No doubt several hundred thousand men will be spent to satisfy the military mind in the point.

I'm not surprised that people are unsettled because of war. The enemy has got a powerful tool, and that is to get on your TV screen by killing innocent people. And my job is to continue to remind the people it's worth it, we're not going to retreat hastily, and we're not going to pull out of there before the job is done. And we have got a plan for victory.

If at war, understand what it takes to win: Set a goal, define victory and fully support the effort. Leave no doubt that you respect the troops and appreciate their service.

The transition from the defensive to the offensive is one of the most delicate operations in war.

A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought… but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.

And we will win the war, and there will be costs. But the military folks understand that, and so do I, and so does the Secretary of Defense.

Reasons are the spoils of victory. When you've destroyed the enemy, then your leaders write down the reasons in books, and give moving speeches about them. If you've done your job, then there aren't any of the enemy left to dispute your leader's reasons. At least not until the next war.

I don't object to its being called "McNamara's war." I think it is a very important war and I am pleased to be identified with it and do whatever I can to win it.

If I had one more division like this First Marine Division I could win this war.

The idea that the United States is going to win the war in Iraq is just plain wrong.

The conduct of war was so much more interesting than its prevention.

In war, practice dissimulation and you will succeed.

It is always easy enough to take up arms, but very difficult to lay them down; the commencement and the termination of war are notnecessarily in the same hands; even a coward may begin, but the end comes only when the victors are willing.

The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. The fighters are our salvation, but the bombers alone provide the means of victory.