Quotes About Warfare

Good. Then we will fight in the shade

Be brave, my heart [wrote the poet and mercenary Archilochus]. Plant your feet and square your shoulders to the enemy. Meet him among the man-killing spears. Hold your ground. In victory, do not brag; in defeat, do not weep. The ancients resisted innovation in warfare because they feared it would rob the struggle of honor. King Agis was shown a new catapult, which could shoot a killing dart 200 yards. When he saw this, he wept. "Alas," he said. "Valor is no more.

The Spartans do not ask how many are the enemy but where are they. —Plutarch Sayings of the Spartans

Be brave, my heart [wrote the poet and mercenary Archilochus]. Plant your feet and square your shoulders to the enemy. Meet him among the man-killing spears. Hold your ground. In victory, do not brag; in defeat, do not weep.

You have never tasted freedom, friend," Dienekes spoke, "or you would know it is purchased not with gold, but steel.

The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell.

It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior's life.   —Telamon of Arcadia, mercenary of the fifth century B.C.

Our team has zero; has he got Close Air Support, drones, anything?

Those who do not understand war believe it contention between armies, friend against foe. No. Rather friend and foe duel as one against an unseen antagonist, whose name is Fear, and seek, even entwined in death, to mount to that promontory whose ensign is honor.

We slew three hundred of them," replied Artemisia, "and it took two million of us to do it." These

But convey this, above all, to your men: let them not yield preeminence in valor to the Spartans, rather strive to outdo them. Remember, in warfare practice of arms counts for little. Courage tells all, and we Spartans have no monopoly on that. Lead your men with this in mind and all will be well." TWENTY-THREE It was the standing order of my master on campaign that he be woken two hours before dawn, an hour prior to the men of his platoon.

Xerxes does not want your lives, sir," Tommie called. "Only your arms." Leonidas laughed. "Tell him to come and get them.

Never forget, Alexandros, that this flesh, this body, does not belong to us. Thank God it doesn't. If I thought this stuff was mine, I could not advance a pace into the face of the enemy. But it is not ours, my friend. It belongs to the gods and to our children, our fathers and mothers and those of Lakedaemon a hundred, a thousand years yet unborn. It belongs to the city which gives us all we have and demands no less in requital.

will tell His Majesty what a king is. A king does not abide within his tent while his men bleed and die upon the field.

I will tell His Majesty what a king is. A king does not abide within his tent while his men bleed and die upon the field.

Good," he said. "Then we'll have our battle in the shade.

The Spartans do not ask how many are the enemy but where are they. —Plutarch

In frontline dressing stations, wounded men of Axis and Allied armies often received treatment side by side, on no few occasions from German and British medical officers working shoulder to shoulder. The leading exemplar of this code was Rommel himself. When orders from Hitler mandated the execution of captured British commandos, Rommel tossed the document into the trash.

Juro, companheiros, [os persas] eram tão numerosos que ao lançarem os projéteis a massa de flechas bloqueava o sol! Os olhos do boateiro estavam inflamados de prazer. Virou-se para o meu senhor, como se para saborear a chama de pavor que sua narrativa inflamara até mesmo em um espartano. Para sua decepção, Dienekes olhava-o com um desprendimento indiferente, quase entediado. — Ótimo — disse ele. — Combateremos à sombra.

From what I've seen, the operations of war are constituted less of glorious attacks and valiant defences and more of an ongoing succession of mundane and often excruciating balls-ups.

You have never tasted freedom, friend," Dienekes spoke, "or you would know it is purchased not with gold, but steel." Pressfield, Steven (2007-01-30). Gates of Fire (p. 47). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

But another lesson Watashi taught has stuck with me to this day. Watashi always pronounced the word "feel" as if it had quotation marks around it. In other words, he scorned the word absolutely. In Watashi's lexicon, feel and feelings had no meaning in war. They had no meaning in competition. They had no meaning in life.

Our guns do not strip the foe of life with surgical strokes. They take them in a holocaust.

The year after Thermopylae, the Greek fleet and army threw back the Persian multitudes at Salamis and Plataea. The West survived then, in no small measure because of her women.