Soldier's Life Quotes

I should not care to live half-frozen in a trench, up to my middle in water, for three or four months, because someone in authority said I ought to shoot Germans. But if I were a Frenchman I should do it, because I would have been accustomed to the idea by my compulsory military service.

The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point?but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

If our soldiers are not overburdened with money, it is not because they have a distaste for riches; if their lives are not unduly long, it is not because they are disinclined to longevity.

Tomorrow we will be nothing but earth and dust. Who will remember the love a soldier once knew?

No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.

For a soldier I enlisted, to grow great in fame. And be shot at for sixpence a day.

You are not a man anymore. You are a soldier. Your comfort is of no importance and your life isn't of much importance. Most of your orders will be unpleasant, but that's not your business. They should've trained you for this, and not for flower-strewn streets. They should have built your soul with truth, not led along with lies.

I want to play a man in uniform. I've got tremendous respect for that life that they lead. We know so little about it. It's never discussed or talked about, when they come back from battle. I want to examine the choices that have to be made in those terrible times. [...] I'll get to wear a uniform.

Fighting for men back then, I think, was just more a way of life, especially if you were a soldier obviously.

Bravery in simple soldiers is a dangerous trade, to which they have bound themselves to get their livelihood.

Ambition, the soldier's virtue.

I was born as a soldier and will die as one.

I believe that the fighters know. It's just the people not actually fighting who need to understand more that we're putting our lives on the line.

The sergeant was describing a military life. It was all drinking, he said, except that there were frequent intervals of eating and love making.

What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs—I was a man before I was a king.

For more than a quarter of a century on active duty, my house has been my tent, and my home the battlefield.

The soldier's lot is the most melancholy relic of barbarism (next to capital punishment) that lingers on among mankind.

Drinking is the soldier's pleasure.

I wonder if a soldier ever does mend a bullet hole in his coat?

[Luke, holding stormtrooper helmet.] Alas, poor stormtrooper, I knew ye not,/ yet have I taken both uniform and life/ From thee. What manner of a man wert thou?/ A man of inf'nite jest or cruelty?/ A man with helpmate and with children too?/ A man who hath his Empire serv'd with pride?/ A man, perhaps, who wish'd for perfect peace?/ What'er thou wert, goodman, thy pardon grant/ Unto the one who took thy place: e'en me.