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

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

I’ve been writing poems since I was in the Navy – to Rosalynn. I found I could say things in poems that I never could in prose. Deeper, more personal things. I could write a poem about my mother that I could never tell my mother. Or feelings about being on a submarine that I would have been too embarrassed to share with fellow submariners.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

In this age, I don’t care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are: if you cannot create harmony – even vicious harmony – on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete.

Bobby Knight told me this: ‚There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense.‘ In other words a good offense wins.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument. Isaac Stern takes good care of his violin. What if everybody jumped on his violin?

Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners.

I don’t think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.

SEALs are human beings. We may all have the same haircuts, but we aren’t robots. Some SEALs are great people. Some are not great people. Some have done unspeakably terrible things. You’re dealing with different people, different dreams, different desires.

The great defense against the air menace is to attack the enemy’s aircraft as near as possible to their point of departure.

I didn’t want to submit to the army and then, on the day of judgment, have God say to me, ‚Why did you do that?‘ This life is a trial, and you realize that what you do is going to be written down for Judgment Day.

Nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologist. No doctrine of that faith seems to me so spectral, so unreal as one that I have just successfully defended in a public debate.

There are people with otherwise chaotic and disorganized lives, a certain type of person that’s always found a home in the restaurant business in much the same way that a lot of people find a home in the military.

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

Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.

Soldiers, I had lately like to have been taken from you by the attempt of a few desperate men, but by the grace and providence of the gods, I am still preserved.

An army marches on its stomach.

Lord keep us all from sin. Teach us how to walk circumspectly; enable us to guard our minds against error of doctrine, our hearts against wrong feelings, and our lives against evil actions.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

My decision to register women confirms what is already obvious throughout our society-that women are now providing all types of skills in every profession. The military should be no exception.

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.

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

Education is the cheap defense of nations.

Governments regard their own citizens as their main enemy, and they have to be – protect themselves. That’s why you have state secret laws. Citizens are not supposed to know what their government is doing to them.

To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.

The military can buy our diplomats some time.

A private soldier has as much right to justice as a major-general.

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.

Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.

The Marine Corps is the Navy’s police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin’s.

I would storm the gates of Hell if Third Marine Air Wing was overhead.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society.

The army is the true nobility of our country.

We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.

Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators.

The army teaches boys to think like men.

America has fought five wars since 1945 and has gained its objectives in only one of them, the Gulf War.

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?

If someone attacks me, and they want to punch or kick me, I can just run away. They’re not holding onto me. I can get away from them.

When a nation is surrounded by weaponized nations, she has to equip herself.

Obviously, there’s a part of me that takes the world of violence and death very seriously. However, when it comes to protection, or when it comes to just the skill of shooting… I’ve gone to the range with sniper rifles and things like that.

Wars are caused by undefended wealth.

The sergeant is the Army.

People need to be insured so when you have an accident out there, or when something catastrophic happens to you, that you’re covered and there’s not someone else has to pay for you. That is as simple as that.

Life guided me to being a bodyguard, protecting people, then in the movies, so I’m happy with everything because basically all I ever wanted to do was be a good son and take care of my mother.

This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

It is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed any longer.

Let me tell you what I literally told every world leader I’ve met with, and I’ve met them all: It’s never, never, never been a good bet to bet against America. We have the finest fighting force in the world.

Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

I’ve had some ‚riotous excursions of the human spirit‘ alongside the young Sailors and Marines, and it’s time to leave the stage to the young leaders who got their rank the old-fashioned way – they earned their stripes in combat.

If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.

I felt we must separate political responsibility. The Dalai Lama should not carry that burden. So that is my selfish reason – to protect the old Dalai Lama tradition. It is safer without political involvement.

Gulf Lesson One is the value of airpower.

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free 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.