Collection of Military Quotations

"Congress can make a General, but only communications can make him a commander."

General Omar Bradley

"In the World War, nothing was more dreadful to witness than a chain of men starting with a battalion commander and ending with an army commander sitting in telephone boxes … talking, talking, talking in place of leading, leading, leading." Generalship: Its Diseases and Their Cure, 1936

Major-General J.F.C. Fuller

"My Lord, if I attempted to answer the mass of futile correspondence which surrounds me, I should be debarred from the serious business of campaigning. So long as I retain an independent position, I shall see no officer under my command is debarred by attending to the futile drivelling of mere quill-driving from attending to his first duty, which is and always has been to train the private men under his command that they may without question beat any force opposed to them in the field." (To the Secretary of State for War during the Peninsular Campaign)

Wellington

"Gentlemen, we are being killed on the beaches. Lets go inland and be killed." (on Omaha Beach, 1944)

"I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely his lips, follow me." Soldier, patriot and uniter of modern Italy.

"I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat’."

I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me. Dispatch, Aug. 1810, speaking of his generals

Leadership is about motivating human resources. Management is utilising resources to their most efficient, desired output. But the human labour stock needs to be motivated, convinced of its work, and this is what leadership is about.

One can be a very good manager with very little leadership ability. A leader can have excitement, vision and emotion, but lack the management abilities to carry out his vision. Leadership is motivation to create business, management the skill to retain it. You manage things, you lead people.

"Needless to say, [he] was greatly admired by his men, and he, in his turn, spared no effort in looking after them. However he was never familiar. It might be thought that an officer living in such close contact with his men would soon become on familiar terms with them. This easily happens and often enough the officer's authority seems to become shared out among the men, leaving him with the ultimate responsibility for decisions he may not have been alone in making. It did not happen to [him]. Authority never slipped from his grasp, not merely because he was an officer but because he was clearly the best, and the leader ." [of Maj. Anders Lassen in The SAS]

"He [Lt Col 'Paddy' R.B. Mayne] was highly intelligent and a good organiser. He was also compassionate. These qualities alone would not, of course, have made him the great fighter and leader that he was. Mayne probably owed much of his success to methodical, careful planning. If he had to venture into the unknown he would go without hesitation, but if there was any possibility of preliminary reconnaissance he would carry this out meticulously ."

"Where that power [over men] lay is hard to define. I was carried away by his enthusiasm, by his energy, by his oratory, by his sheer determination, courage and endurance .. he knew what fear was. He could recognise the symptoms and he did not like them. But he could control that fear, which was very real in him, and that is the measure of true courage and supreme self-confidence ." [of David Stirling in The SAS]

"Thoughtful naval officers concede that staff work has never been one of their service's greatest strengths. The autocratic command structure that is necessary in a warship at sea mitigates against the military approach, which is for a commander to offer his staff great flexibility in presenting a range of alternatives for achieving an objective. A naval staff is more accustomed to being arbitrarily informed by its commander, 'This is what I want to do. Arrange to do it.'"

Norman Dixon

"A piece of spaghetti, like a military unit, must be lead from the front."

General George S. Patton

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon St. Crispin's day." HENRY V

William Shakespeare

"I once knew a fellow whose father was a Company Sergeant-major. His father said, 'The men underneath me are more frightened of me than anything else, and that's a good idea because if I told them to do something they'll do it. Rather than be frightened of what they were going to do, they're frightened of me.' With hindsight, I could see the logic of it." in The Navy: 1939 to the present day, Max Arthur

Able Seaman Bob Tilburn, RN

"Where there is no vision, the people perish."

Proverbs 19:18

"To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful."

Edward R Murrow

"What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you're advancing. If you don't you're as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn't there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you."

Lyndon B. Johnson

"To lead people, walk beside them ... As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate ... When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves!'"

Lao Tzu

"Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself—your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers."

Founder and CEO Emeritus, Visa, Dee Hock

"All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."

John Kenneth Galbraith

"The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been."

Henry Kissinger

"The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already."

John Buchan

"Leadership must be based on goodwill. Goodwill does not mean posturing and, least of all, pandering to the mob. It means obvious and wholehearted commitment to helping followers. We are tired of leaders we fear, tired of leaders we love, and of tired of leaders who let us take liberties with them. What we need for leaders are men of the heart who are so helpful that they, in effect, do away with the need of their jobs. But leaders like that are never out of a job, never out of followers. Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away."

Admiral James B. Stockdale

"Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand."

General Colin Powell

"Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others may receive your orders without being humiliated."

Dag Hammarskjöld

"The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men, the conviction and the will to carry on."

Walter Lippmann

"People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives."

Theodore Roosevelt

"Look over your shoulder now and then to be sure someone's following you."

Henry Gilmer

more quotations about leadership (mostly Montgomery) >>