I was a Marine for 41 years, and it wasn’t long enough. We enjoy putting on that uniform.

None of us has any personal interest above the interests of the country. Our country is more important than our careers.

I’m not an expert on the arms race.

Here at home, when Americans were standing in long lines to give blood after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we squandered an obvious opportunity to make service a noble cause again, and rekindle an American spirit of community.

Standing as I do, with my hand upon this staff, and under the folds of the American flag, I ask you to stand by me so long as I stand by it.

An army marches on its stomach.

Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

The Marines have landed, and we now own a piece of Afghanistan.

The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the angels of our nature.

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.

The sergeant is the Army.

Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness – great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy.

The United States is a violent military state. It’s been involved in military action all over the place.

I have always reckoned the dignity of the republic of first importance and preferable to life.

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 high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.

Among us, who is above must be in service of the others. This doesn’t mean we have to wash each other’s feet every day, but we must help one another.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.

The gods‘ service is tolerable, man’s intolerable.

If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought.

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.

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.

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first.

I’m a nationalist. I’m a patriot. Nothing is wrong. I’m a born Hindu. Nothing is wrong. So, I’m a Hindu nationalist, so yes, you can say I’m a Hindu nationalist because I am a born Hindu, I’m patriotic, so nothing is wrong in it.

We’re running the company to serve more people.

The greatest thrill in my life was to represent the United States of America.

There are many people who do not know if the U.S. Army has 60,000 men or 6 million. They do not have a clue about that.

Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.

The honor of a nation is its life.

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

Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.

Part of the American dream is to live long and die young. Only those Americans who are willing to die for their country are fit to live.

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

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

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

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

Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.

When you put on a uniform, there are certain inhibitions that you accept.

There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

The names of Dingane and Bambata, Hintsa and Makana, Squngthi and Dalasile, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhuni, were praised as the glory of the entire African nation. I hoped then that life might offer me the opportunity to serve my people and make my own humble contribution to their freedom struggle.

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as president I must put the interests of America first Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

The American people are so much stronger, so much more resolved than any enemy can fully understand.

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.

‚My country, right or wrong‘ is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying ‚My mother, drunk or sober.‘

How wonderful it is to be an American. We have known the best of times and the worst of times.

Get off your butt and join the Marines!

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism – how passionately I hate them!

Nothing can be more hurtful to the service, than the neglect of discipline; for that discipline, more than numbers, gives one army the superiority over another.

As a Christian, you forgive, and you feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and you visit the sick and comfort the lonely. If I’m a true follower of my lord and saviour Jesus Christ, I got to do the things you’re supposed to be doing.

WikiLeaks is a service to the population. Assange should get an award for – presidential medal of honor.

The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.

I see Americans of every party, every background, every faith who believe that we are stronger together: black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; young, old; gay, straight; men, women, folks with disabilities, all pledging allegiance under the same proud flag to this big, bold country that we love. That’s what I see. That’s the America I know!

When trouble breaks out, our men and women in uniform, they don’t just sit around thinking about it or talking about it – they act. They put on that uniform. They leave their loved ones behind. They go out there. They give orders. They follow orders. They do whatever it takes to keep our country safe.

I suppose, in a way, this has become part of my soul. It is a symbol of my life. Whatever I have done that really matters, I’ve done wearing it. When the time comes, it will be in this that I journey forth. What greater honor could come to an American, and a soldier?

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

We are a nation founded as a rebuke to tyranny. A nation of revolutionaries who refused sovereign reign from afar. Hear me – we’re a nation that says give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. A nation built on our differences, guided by the belief that we’re all created equal.

One of the good things about the way the Gulf War ended in 1991 is, you’d see the Vietnam veterans marching with the Gulf War veterans.