When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes.

As commanders and staff officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach anything if we don’t know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs?

Get off your butt and join the Marines!

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

We know that in tough times, cynicism is just another way to give up, and in the military, we consider cynicism or giving up simply as forms of cowardice.

Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.

Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation – not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago.

Our combat mission is ending, but our commitment to Iraq’s future is not.

Neither the Army nor the Navy is of any protection, or very little protection, against aerial raids.

I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.

Certainly it is valuable to a trained writer to crash in an aircraft which burns. He learns several important things very quickly. Whether they will be of use to him is conditioned by survival. Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer.

Never give in – never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.

What makes you a SEAL, what makes you a SEAL is being a good tactician on the battle field, understanding how to shoot, move, and communicate, knowing small unit maneuver warfare. That’s what makes a good SEAL, and so that is the course of instruction that I taught, was getting SEAL platoons ready for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.

My great-grandfather and his two brothers fought at Gettysburg. They were in artillery, and they survived the war, thank goodness. So I revere what they did. I think their motivations were honorable when they undertook the war and participated in it along with other Southerners.

The cross of the Legion of Honor has been conferred on me. However, few escape that distinction.

No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic, and certainly, to a kingdom or estate, a just and honourable war is the true exercise.

The higher the sun ariseth, the less shadow doth he cast; even so the greater is the goodness, the less doth it covet praise; yet cannot avoid its rewards in honours.

For the mission’s sake, for our country’s sake, and the sake of the men who carried the Division’s colors in past battles – carry out your mission and keep your honor clean.

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

So long as I’m Commander-in-Chief, we will sustain the strongest military the world has ever known. When you take off the uniform, we will serve you as well as you’ve served us – because no one who fights for this country should have to fight for a job, or a roof over their head, or the care that they need when they come home.

We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.

For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.

Ability without honor is useless.

Nothing reflects so much honor on a workman as a trial of his work and its endurance of it. So it is with God. It honors Him when His saints preserve their integrity.

I was honoured when they asked me to appear at the president’s birthday rally in Madison Square Garden. There was like a hush over the whole place when I came on to sing ‚Happy Birthday,‘ like if I had been wearing a slip, I would have thought it was showing or something. I thought, ‚Oh, my gosh, what if no sound comes out!‘

Pakistan will never be able to match the Indian militarily, and the effort to do so is taking an immense toll on the society.

In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.

We give speeches and pin ribbons onto uniforms, etch names into walls. And all that is fine, but too often, all those tributes, all those words aren’t always backed up by action. And that felt like such a stark contrast to me, because, as we all know, our military is all about action.

The policemen or soldiers are only a gun in the establishments hand. They make the racist secure in his racism.

The U.S.S. George H. W. Bush is a great thing in my life. It’s amazing. A great honor.

Throughout my career, I learned plenty about war on the battlefield, but I learned even more about the importance of finding peace. And that is what the State Department and U.S.A.I.D. do: prevent the wars that we can avoid so that we fight only the ones we must.

Demonstrate to the world, there is ‚No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy‘ than a U.S. Marine.

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We, of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

The military can buy our diplomats some time.

All honor’s wounds are self-inflicted.

Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.

It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.

Most people know nobody in the military.

The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.

The United States is afraid of China; it is not a military threat to anyone and is the least aggressive of all the major military powers.

Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.

When Hillary served in the Senate, I saw her work day and night as a member of the Armed Services Committee – working with Republicans and Democrats to keep our military strong and protect our troops and their families.

The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies.

Could I have but a line a century hence crediting a contribution to the advance of peace, I would yield every honor which has been accorded by war.

No greater nor more affectionate honor can be conferred on an American than to have a public school named after him.

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.

I have just returned from visiting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world!

The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

I am the commander in chief of the United States armed forces, and Iraq is gonna have to ultimately provide for its own security.

As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.

I have observed that society in general always seems to honor its living conformists and its dead troublemakers.

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.

The atomic bomb certainly is the most powerful of all weapons, but it is conclusively powerful and effective only in the hands of the nation which controls the sky.