George S. Patton Quotes

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.

I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.

Urge all of your men to pray, not alone in church, but everywhere. Pray when driving. Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day. Pray for the cessation of immoderate rains, for good weather for Battle.Pray for the defeat of our wicked enemy whose banner is injustice and whose good is oppression. Pray for victory. Pray for our Army, and Pray for Peace. We must march together, all out for God.

To me it seems certain that the fatalistic teachings of Muhammad and the utter degradation of women is the outstanding cause for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have kept on developing.

Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired... You've always got to make the mind take over and keep going.

May God have mercy for my enemies because I won't.

I am a Soldier, I fight where I am told, and I win where I fight.

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.

Achievers are resolute in their goals and driven by determination. Discouragement is temporary, obstacles are overcome, and doubt is defeated, yielding to personal victory. You need to overcome the tug of people against you as you reach for high goals. Accept the challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.

Give me an Army of West Point graduates and I'll win a battle... Give me a handful of Texas Aggies and I'll win a war.

A leader is a man who can adapt principles to circumstances.

The more I see of Arabs the less I think of them. By having studied them a good deal I have found out the trouble. They are the mixture of all the bad races on earth, and they get worse from west to east, because the eastern ones have had more crosses.

When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can't run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn't fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag. As for the types of comments I make, sometimes I just, By God, get carried away with my own eloquence.

Better to fight for something than live for nothing.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.

Fear kills more people than death.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

I have studied the enemy all my life. I have read the memoirs of his generals and his leaders. I have even read his philosophers and listened to his music. I have studied in detail the account of every damned one of his battles. I know exactly how he will react under any given set of circumstances. And he hasn't the slightest idea of what I'm going to do. So when the time comes, I'm going to whip the hell out of him.

There is a great deal of talk about loyalty from the bottom to the top. Loyalty from the top down is even more necessary and much less prevalent. One of the most frequently noted characteristics of great men who have remained great is loyalty to their subordinates.

The highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is bearing arms.

You cannot be disciplined in great things and undisciplined in small things.

If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you'll be amazed at the results.

Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.

A man must know his destiny… if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, twice, or at the very most, three times, fate will reach out and tap a man on the shoulder… if he has the imagination, he will turn around and fate will point out to him what fork in the road he should take, if he has the guts, he will take it.

No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair.

The test of success is not what you do when you are on top. Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

When in doubt, observe and ask questions. When certain, observe at length and ask many more questions.

Make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up.

Do not try to make circumstances fit your plans. Make plans that fit the circumstances.

An active mind cannot exist in an inactive body.

Always do more than is required of you.

Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man.

The soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers. The Soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one’s country

Keep going, someone must be on top, why not you?

Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy.

The supreme measure of a man, is what he would risk his life for.

I do not have to tell you who won the war. You know, the artillery did.

Do your damnedest in an ostentatious manner all the time.

All men are timid on entering any fight. Whether it is the first or the last fight, all of us are timid. Cowards are those who let their timidity get the better of their manhood.

There are three ways that men get what they want; by planning, by working, and by praying. Any great military operation takes careful planning, or thinking. Then you must have well-trained troops to carry it out: that's working. But between the plan and the operation there is always an unknown. That unknown spells defeat or victory, success or failure. It is the reaction of the actors to the ordeal when it actually comes. Some people call that getting the breaks; I call it God. God has His part, or margin in everything, That's where prayer comes in.

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

Pressure makes diamonds

If a man does his best, what else is there?

Attack rapidly, ruthlessly, viciously, without rest, however tired and hungry you may be, the enemy will be more tired, more hungry. Keep punching.

Plans must be simple and flexible....They must be made by the people who execute them.

You need to overcome the tug of people against you as you reach for high goals.

Often I have encountered in life that great disappointments have proved to be the road to future successes.

When there is fear of failure, there will be failure.