Douglas MacArthur Quotes

A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair; these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whatever your years, there is in every being's heart the love of wonder, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy and the game of life.

I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.

Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.

History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.

The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.

Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense. Our threat is from the insidious forces working from within which have already so drastically altered the character of our free institutions - those institutions we proudly called the American way of life.

No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.

Give me ten thousand Filipino soldiers and I will conquer the world.

By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder - infinitely prouder - to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle field but in the home repeating with him our simple daily prayer, Our Father Who Art in Heaven.

Youth is not entirely a time of life; it is a state of mind. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubts; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.

Even when opportunity knocks, a man still has to get up off his seat and open the door.

For those to whom much is given, much is required. It is not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up. There is no substitute for victory.

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

Are we going to continue to yield personal liberties and community autonomy to the steady inexplicable centralization all political power or restore the Republic to Constitutional direction, regain our personal liberties and reassume the individual state's primary responsibility and authority in the conduct of local affairs? Are we going to permit a continuing decline in public and private morality or re-establish high ethical standards as the means of regaining a diminishing faith in the integrity of our public and private institutions?

Have a good plan, execute it violently, and do it today.

You are remembered for the rules you break.

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.

Once war is forced upon us, there is no alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War’s very object is victory-not prolonged indecision.

There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.

Rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind.

"Duty, Honor, Country" - those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

The enemy is in front of us, the enemy is behind us, the enemy is to the right and to the left of us. They can't get away this time!

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

There are some who, for varying reasons, would appease Red China. They are blind to history's clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance where this end has justified that means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace. Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative.

We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction.

Preparedness is the key to success and victory.

It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.

It is my earnest hope, and indeed the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past...

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

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young. When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and then only, are you grown old. And then, indeed as the ballad says, you just fade away

Years wrinkle the skin. Giving up wrinkles the soul.

Beware not the enemy from 'without' but the enemy from 'within'.

I had learned one of the bitter lessons of life: never try to regain the past, the fire will have become ashes.

I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes... But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end.

We are bound no longer by the straitjacket of the past and nowhere is the change greater than in our profession of arms. What, you may well ask, will be the end of all of this? I would not know! But I would hope that our beloved country will drink deep from the chalice of courage.

Worry, doubt, fear and despair are the enemies which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die.

Competitive sports keep alive in us a spirit and vitality. Sports teach the strong to know when they are weak and the brave to face themselves when they are afraid; to be proud and unbowed in defeat, and yet humble and gentle in victory; to master ourselves before we attempt to master others; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; and to give the predominance of courage over timidity.

Americans never quit.

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.

In short, is American life of the future to be characterized by freedom or by servitude, strength or weakness? The answer must be clear and unequivocal if we are to avoid the pitfalls toward which we are now heading with such certainty. In many respects it is not to be found in any dogma of political philosophy but in those immutable precepts which underlie the Ten Commandments.

Life is a lively process of becoming.

Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.

The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training - sacrifice.

The soldier, above all other men, is required to perform the highest act of religious offering-sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death he discloses those divine attributes which his amke gave when he created in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instincts can take the place of the divine annunciation and spiritual gift which will alone sustain him.

Believe me, sir, never a night goes by, be I ever so tired, but I read the Word of God before I go to bed.

They died hard, those savage men - like wounded wolves at bay. They were filthy, and they were lousy, and they stunk. And I loved them.

This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war.

It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.