Douglas MacArthur Quotations

The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.

Never give an order that can't be obeyed.

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.

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.

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.

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

I've looked that old scoundrel death in the eye many times but this time I think he has me on the ropes.

You are remembered for the rules you break.

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

In war, you win or lose, live or die - and the difference is just an eyelash.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.

The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle: the roar of the crowd on the one side, and the voice of your conscience on the other.

A better world shall emerge based on faith and understanding.

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

I have known war as few men now living know it. It's very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.

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

Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows nothing but victories.

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.

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.

Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.

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

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.

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

One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda.

Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.

A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.

Could I have but a line a century hence crediting a contribution to the advance of peace, I would yield every honor which has been accorded by war.

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?

My first recollection is that of a bugle call.

In war there is no substitute for victory.

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.

In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.

Old Soldiers Never Die (Farewell Address to Congress),

On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days and other fields will bear the fruits of victory

Last, but by no means least, courage-moral courage, the courage of one's convictions, the courage to see things through. The world ;is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle-the roar of the crowd on one side and the voice of your ;conscience on the other.

Last, but by no means least, courage - moral courage, the courage of one's convictions, the courage to see things through. The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle - the roar of the crowd on one side and the

While Asia is commonly referred to as the Gateway to Europe, it is no less true that Europe is the Gateway to Asia, and the broad influence of the one cannot fail to have its impact upon the other.

If I had one more division like this First Marine Division I could win this war.

I believe that the entire effort of modern society should be concentrated on the endeavor to outlaw war as a method of the solution of problems between nations.

I'll come back as soon as I can with as much as I can. In the meantime, you've got to hold!

By profession I am a Soldier & take pride in that fact, but I am prouder to be a father.

While I was not consulted prior to the President's decision to intervene in support of the Republic of Korea, that decision from a military standpoint, proved a sound one, as we hurled back the invader and decimated his forces. Our victory was complete, and our objectives within reach, when Red China intervened with numerically superior ground forces.

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace...military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn have failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war not blots out this alternative.

The President of the United States ordered me to break through the Japanese lines and proceed from Corregidor to Australia for the purpose, as I understand it, of organizing the American offensive against Japan, a primary objective of which is the relief of the Philippines. I came through and I shall return.

Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain with death - the seas bear only commerce - men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world lies quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed. And in reporting this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way.

I stand on this rostrum with a sense of deep humility and great pride - humility in the weight of those great American architects of our history who have stood here before me; pride in the reflection that this home of legislative debate represents human liberty in the purest form yet devised.

The outfit soon took on color, dash and a unique flavor which is the essence of that elusive and deathless thing called soldiering.

Nothing would please me better than if they would give me three months and then attack here.

I have one criticism about the Negro troops who fought under my command in the Korean War. They didn't send me enough of them.

While no man in his right mind would advocate sending our ground forces into continental China, and such was never given a thought, the new situation did urgently demand a drastic revision of strategic planning if our political aim was to defeat this new enemy as we had defeated the old.

Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world, and that God will preserve it always.

My staff was unanimous in believing that Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender.

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.

Many will tell you with mockery and ridicule that the abolition of war can only be a dream . . . But we must go on or we will all go under. And the great criticism that can be made is that the world lacks a plan that will enable us to go on . . . We must have sufficient imagination and courage to translate the universal wish for peace - which is rapidly becoming a universal necessity - into actuality.

It seems to me the worst possible concept, militarily, that we would simply stay there, resisting aggression, so-called...it seems to me that the way to "resist aggression" is to destroy the potentialities of the aggressor to continually hit you...When you say, merely, "we are going to continue to fight aggression," that is not what the enemy is fighting for. The enemy is fighting for a very definite purpose-to destroy our forces...

I can recall no parallel in history where a great nation recently at war has so distinguished its former enemy commander.

From the Far East I send you one single thought, one sole idea - written in red on every beachhead from Australia to Tokyo - "There is no substitute for victory!"

It is my earnest hope - 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, a world found upon faith and understanding, a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance and justice.

WE HAVE HAD OUR LAST CHANCE. THE PROBLEM NOW IS BASICALLY THEOLOGICAL, AND INVOLVES SPIRITUALITY AND IMPROVEMENT OF human CHARACTER. IT MUST BE OF THE SPIRIT IF WE ARE TO SAVE THE FLESH.

The hated system of land tenure, so contributory to general unrest in Asia, has been abolished. Every farmer is now accorded the right and dignity of ownership of the land he long has tilled.

Never ask age of a woman.

I will defend Korea as I would my own country-just as I would California.

The chickens are coming home to roost, and you happen to have just moved into the chicken house.

Training distinguishes an army from an armed mob.

Life is a lively process of becoming.

The Puerto Ricans forming the ranks of the gallant 65th Infantry on the battlefields of Korea … are writing a brilliant record of achievement in battle and I am proud indeed to have them in this command. I wish that we might have many more like them.

I know that this operation will be sort of helter-skelter. But the First Marine Division is going to win the war by landing at Inchon.

The great question is, can war be outlawed from the world? If so, it would mark the greatest advance in civilization since the Sermon on the Mount.

There is no security. Only opportunity.

Apart from an innate grasp of tactical concepts, a great coach must possess the essentials attributes of leadership which mold men into a cohesive, fighting team with an invincible will to victory.

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace.

Global war has become Frankenstein's monster, threatening to destroy both sides.

I am of Virginia and all my professional life I have studied of Lee and Jackson

No army has ever done so much with so little.

I realize that advice is worth what it costs--that is, nothing.

It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.

In no other profession are the penalties for employing untrained personnel so appalling or so irrevocable as in the military.

In the mighty and almost limitless potential of American industry-the brilliance and rugged determination of its leaders; the skill, energy and patriotism of its workers-there has been welded an almost impregnable defense against the evil designs of any who would threaten the security of the American continent. It is indeed the most forceful and convincing argument yet evolved to restrain the irresponsibility of those who would recklessly bring down upon the good and peace-loving peoples of all the nations of the earth the disaster of total war.

The nations of the world will have to unite for the next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of Earth must some day make a common front against attack by people from other planets.

He thus reaps the full fruits which result from his toil and labors with the incentive of free enterprise to maximize his effort to achieve increasing production. Representing over a half of Japan's total population, the agriculture workers have become an invincible barrier against the advance of socialistic ideas which would relegate all to the indignity of state servitude.

I came through and I shall return.

The Pacific no longer represents menacing avenues of approach for a prospective invader. It assumes, instead, the friendly aspect of a peaceful lake. Our line of defense is a natural one and can be maintained with a minimum of military effort and expense.

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.

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

The untruthful soldier trifles with the lives of his countrymen and the honor and safety of his country.

In war, indeed, there can be no substitute for victory.

On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days, on other fields will bear the fruits of victory.

A soldier plods and groans, sweats and toils, he growls and curses, and at the end he dies.

I address you with neither rancor nor bitterness in the fading twilight of life, with but one purpose in mind: to serve my country.

The scale and grandeur of the Russian effort mark it as the greatest military achievement in all history.

It was close; but that's the way it is in war. You win or lose, live or die - and the difference is just an eyelash.

We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war.

I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only be deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.

I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God, our forces stand again on Philippine soil.

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.

In war, as it is waged now, with the enormous losses on both sides, both sides will lose. It is a form of mutual suicide.

It seems strangely difficult for some to realize that here in Asia is where the Communist conspirators have elected to make their play for global conquest, and that we have joined the issue thus raised on the battlefield; that here we fight Europe's war with arms while the diplomats there still fight it with words; that if we lose the war to communism in Asia the fall of Europe is inevitable, win it and Europe most probably would avoid war and yet preserve freedom. As you pointed out, we must win. There is no substitute for victory.