190 Soldier Quotes to Honor Their Courage & Sacrifice

2. “Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.” – Alexander Hamilton 

3. “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.” – Douglas MacArthur

4. “A soldier never dies. His blood makes the grass green for his children.” – Carol Berg 

5. “To be heroic is to be courageous enough to die for something. To be inspirational is to be crazy enough to live a little.” – Criss Jami

6. “If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

7. “I am a soldier. I fight where I am told, and I win where I fight.” – George Patton 

8. “The soldier’s heart, the soldier’s spirit, the soldier’s soul are everything.” – George Marshall 

9. “Be strong, saith my heart. I am a soldier. I have seen worse sights than this.” – Homer 

10. “I know what I’m capable of. I am a soldier now, a warrior. I am someone to fear, not hunt.” – Pittacus Lore

11. “We will be soldiers so our sons may be farmers, so their sons may be artists.” – Thomas Jefferson

12. “Good soldiers are defined by what they can endure, not by what they can inflict.” – Gregory David Roberts

13. “Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it except as a means of peace.” – Ulysses S. Grant

14. “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” – Joseph Campbell 

15. “It is a proud privilege to be a soldier—a good soldier with discipline, self-respect, pride in his unit and his country, a high sense of duty and obligation to comrades and to his superiors, and a self-confidence born of demonstrated ability.” – George Patton

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16. “A warrior with a cause is the most dangerous soldier of all.” –

17. “Fortune favors the brave.” – Publius Terence

18. “This will remain the land of the free so long as it is the home of the brave.” – Elmer Davis

19. “The preservation of freedom is not the task of soldiers alone. The whole nation has to be strong.” – Lal Bahadur Shastri

20. “You may be sensitive inside, but what I see on the outside is a soldier.” – Lauren Graham

21. “No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.” – Douglas MacArthur

22. “Heroism doesn’t always happen in a burst of glory. Sometimes, small triumphs and large hearts change the course of history.” – Mary Roach

23. “Only the soldier is a free man because he can look death in the face.” – Friedrich Schiller

24. “The weapon of the advocate is the sword of the soldier, not the dagger of the assassin.” – Alexander Cockburn

25. “No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in chance and trusts his luck.” – Erich Maria Remarque

26. “Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

27. “Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.” –

28. “Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing, but all war is immoral, and if you let that bother you, you’re not a good soldier.” – Curtis LeMay

29. “I can imagine no more rewarding a career, and any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction, ‘I served in the United States Navy.'” – John F. Kennedy

30. “If the thing they were fighting for was important enough to die for, then it was also important enough for them to be thinking about it in the last minutes of their lives. That stood to reason.” – Dalton Trumbo

31. “Freedom is never free.” – Anonymous

32. “The brave die never, though they sleep in dust. Their courage nerves a thousand living men.” – Minot Judson Savage

33. “The most important thing is to never give up, never give in to circumstances, believe in yourself, and to soldier on no matter what’s in your way.” – Luka Modric

34. “Soldiers, when committed to a task, can’t compromise. It’s unrelenting devotion to the standards of duty and courage, absolute loyalty to others, not letting the task go until it’s been done.” – John Keegan

35. “Sometimes, you have to pick the gun up to put the gun down.” –

36. “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” – Nathan Hale

37. “No man is a man until he has been a soldier.” – Louis de Bernières

38. “In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.” – Jose Narosky

39. “You are victorious for the people you have lost, the decisions you have made, the courage you have shown, but being victorious in the war has a price to pay, irrevocable.” – Pushpa Rana

40. “Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

41. “The veterans of our military services have put their lives on the line to protect the freedoms that we enjoy. They have dedicated their lives to their country and deserve to be recognized for their commitment.” – Judd Gregg

42. “A soldier lives always for the next battle because he knows that before it arrives, impossible changes can occur in his favor.” – James A. Michener

43. “There’s only one way for a professional soldier to die. That’s from the last bullet of the last battle of the last war.” – George Patton

44. “You cannot leave your men to stand unmoving on the board and hope to win. A soldier must first step upon the battlefield if does mean to cross it.” – Susanna Kearsley

45. “It is not the dead. Rather, the ones who live through war have seen the dreadful end of the war. You might have been victorious, unwounded, but deep within you, you carry the mark of the war, you carry the memories of war, the time you have to spend with your comrades, the times when you had to dig into foxholes to avoid shelling, the times when you hate to see your comrade down on the ground, feeling of despair, atrocities of the war, missing families, home.” – Pushpa Rana

46. “The patriot volunteer, fighting for country and his rights, makes the most reliable soldier on earth.” – Stonewall Jackson

47. “Every soldier must know, before he goes into battle, how the little battle he is to fight fits into the larger picture, and how the success of his fighting will influence the battle as a whole.” – Bernard Law Montgomery

48. “It is courage, courage, courage that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.” – Quintus Horatius Flaccus

49. “We sleep peaceably in our beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf.” –

50. “To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less.” – André Malraux

51. “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.” – J.K. Rowling

52. “Being brave means knowing that when you fail, you don’t fail forever.” – Lana Del Rey

53. “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” – Albert Einstein

54. “No guts, no glory.” – Frederick Corbin Blesse

55. “You’ve never lived until you’ve almost died. For those who have fought for it, life has a flavor the protected shall never know.” – Guy de Maupassant

56. “I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed.” – Mahatma Gandhi

57. “We live in a world that has walls, and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns.” – Aaron Sorkin

58. “Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.” – David Hackworth

59. “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.” – Winston Churchill

60. “Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never tastes death but once.” – William Shakespeare

61. “There must be some good in the life of battle, for so many good men have enjoyed being soldiers.” – Gilbert Keith Chesterton

62. “If you can’t experience the humanity of people who don’t look like you, you’re not civilized enough to be an officer of the peace.” – Ann Medlock

63. “Discipline is simply the art of making the soldiers fear their officers more than the enemy.” – Claude Adrien Helvetius

64. “The most important thing I learned is that soldiers watch what their leaders do. You can give them classes and lecture them forever, but it is your personal example they will follow.” – Colin Powell

65. “Who dares, wins. Who sweats, wins. Who plans, wins.” – British Special Air Service

66. “You can’t stop a soldier from being frightened, but you can give him the motivation to help him overcome that fear.” – Andrzej Sapkowski

67. “Only happy people have nightmares from overeating. For those who live a nightmare reality, sleep is a black hole lost in time, like death.” – Guy Sajer

68. “Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.” – Otto von Bismarck

69. “The hardest thing of all for a soldier is to retreat.” – Arthur Wellesley

70. “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.” – George Patton

71. “Maybe, the ultimate wound is the one that makes you miss the war you got it in.” – Sebastian Junger

72. “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

73. “The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue. Courage is only the second virtue.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

74. “We must never forget why we have and why we need our military. Our armed forces exist solely to ensure our nation is safe so that each and every one of us can sleep soundly at night, knowing we have ‘guardians at the gate.'” – Allen West

75. “Then there was the war, and I married it because there was nothing else when I reached the age of falling in love.” – Guy Sajer

76. “Ambition—the soldier’s virtue.” – William Shakespeare

77. “War is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of.” – Sebastian Junger

78. “All you have to do is hold your first soldier who is dying in your arms and have that terribly futile feeling that I can’t do anything about it. Then, you understand the horror of war.” – Norman Schwarzkopf

79. “One doesn’t become a soldier in a week—it takes training, study, and discipline. There is no question that the finest army in the world is found in the United States.” – Daniel Inouye

80. “But to the fighting soldier, that phase of the war is behind. It was left behind after his first battle. His blood is up. He is fighting for his life, and killing now for him is as much a profession as writing is for me.” – Ernie Pyle

81. “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.” – Thucydides

82. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” –

83. “True courage is being afraid and going ahead and doing your job.” – Norman Schwarzkopf

84. “Live for something rather than die for nothing.” – George Patton

85. “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” – Edward Estlin Cummings

86. “Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.” – Paulo Coelho

87. “There are far better things ahead than we ever leave behind.” – Clive Staples Lewis

88. “It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It is morale that wins the victory.” – George Marshall

89. “What is at a peak is certain to decline. He who shows his hand will certainly be defeated. He who can prevail in battle by taking advantage of his enemy’s doubts is invincible.” – Cao Cao

90. “We make war that we may live in peace.” – Aristotle

91. “In war, there is no substitute for victory.” – Douglas MacArthur

92. “Know the enemy and know yourself. In a hundred battles, you will never peril.” –

93. “It is fatal to enter a war without the will to win it.” – Douglas MacArthur

94. “Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.” – George Patton

95. “The soldier who fights to death never dies, but the soldier who fights for existence never truly exists.” – Anonymous

96. “I was born as a soldier and will die as one.” – Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

97. “It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.” – Norman Schwarzkopf

98. “From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.” – Thomas Jefferson

99. “The truth is that you always know the right thing to do. The tough part is doing it.” – Norman Schwarzkopf

100. “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” – Winston Churchill

101. “My father was a soldier, which meant that he was a warrior, which meant that he was important. My mother rode a horse and sang in the Governor-General’s band, so that made her important as well.” – Spike Milligan

102. “Necessity is laid upon us. We must fight. There are no promises in the Lord Jesus Christ’s epistles to the seven churches except to those who ‘overcome.’ Where there is grace, there will be conflict. The believer is a soldier. There is no holiness without warfare. Saved souls will always be found to have fought a fight.” – John Charles Ryle

103. “A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood.” – George Patton

104. “Theirs is not to make reply. Theirs is not to reason why. Theirs is but to do and die.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson

105. “The patriot’s blood is the seed of freedom’s tree.” – Thomas Campbell

106. “When we assumed the soldier, we did not lay aside the citizen.” – George Washington

107. “Wars will remain while human nature remains. I believe in my soul in cooperation, in arbitration, but the soldier’s occupation, we cannot say is gone until human nature is gone.” – Rutherford B. Hayes

108. “Soldiers are issued armor for their flesh and bones, but they must fashion their own for their souls. Piece by piece.” – Steven Erikson

109. “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 the uniter of modern Italy.” – Giuseppe Garibaldi

110. “Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere who bravely bears his country’s cause. Honor, also, to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field and serves, as he best can, the same cause.” – Abraham Lincoln

111. “I respect every soldier from every country, who serves beside us in the hard work of history. America is grateful, and America will not forget.” – George W. Bush

112. “America without her soldiers would be like God without His angels.” – Claudia Pemberton

113. “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.” – George Patton

114. “Old soldiers never die. They just fade away.” – Douglas MacArthur

115. “On the battlefield, the military pledges to leave no soldier behind. As a nation, let it be our pledge that when they return home, we leave no veteran behind.” – Dan Lipinski

116. “Guard zealously your right to serve in the Armed Forces, for without them, there will be no other rights to guard.” – John F. Kennedy

117. “Soldiers win battles and generals get the medals.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

118. “Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.” – Thomas Jefferson

119. “Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable. Procures success to the weak and esteem to all.” – George Washington

120. “Soldiers have many faults, but they have one redeeming merit—they are never worshippers of force. Soldiers more than any other men are taught severely and systematically that might is not right.” – Gilbert Keith Chesterton

121. “What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight—it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” – Dwight Eisenhower

122. “True patriotism isn’t cheap. It’s about taking on a fair share of the burden of keeping America going.” – Robert Reich

123. “May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely than this our own country!” – Daniel Webster

124. “Once we have a war, there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.” – Ernest Hemingway

125. “If I became president now, I would immediately pass a law that makes every citizen a policeman or a soldier.” – Fela Kuti

126. “To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.” – James Carse

127. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.” – Colin Powell

128. “Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin

129. “If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn’t plan your mission properly.” – David Hackworth

130. “These fallen heroes represent the character of a nation who has a long history of patriotism and honor and a nation who has fought many battles to keep our country free from threats of terror.” – Michael N. Castle

131. “Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.” – Douglas MacArthur

132. “The only things those people have that you don’t is guts. Do you want to live forever?” – Merritt A. Edson

133. “A soldier that dies to protect the lives and freedom of their fellow citizens deserves a day of recognition.” – Anonymous

134. “Out of every 100 men, 10 shouldn’t even be there, 80 are just targets, 9 are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.” – Heraclitus

135. “How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!” – Maya Angelou

136. “War is the greatest evil Satan has invented to corrupt our hearts and souls. We should honor our soldiers, but we should never honor war.” – Dean Hughes

137. “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.” – George Patton

138. “War means fighting, and fighting means killing.” – Nathan Bedford Forrest

139. “If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat.” – Sun Tzu

140. “No time to spare—the expression assumed its full significance, as so many expressions do in wartime.” – Guy Sajer

141. “No one hates war like a soldier hates war.” – Tommy Franks

142. “What shall I say further? Shall I not stop short and leave to your imaginations to portray the tragic deeds of war? Is it not enough that I here, leave it even to unexperience to fancy the hardships, the anxieties, the dangers, even of the best life of a soldier?” – Deborah Sampson

143. “If there is not the war, you don’t get the great general. If there is not a great occasion, you don’t get a great statesman. If Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.” – Theodore Roosevelt

144. “If you wage war, do it energetically and with severity. This is the only way to make it shorter and consequently less inhuman.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

145. “Could I have but a line a century hence crediting a contribution to the advance of peace, I would gladly yield every honor which has been accorded me in war.” – Douglas MacArthur

146. “War is too important to be left to the generals.” – Georges Clémenceau

147. “This soldier, I realized, must have had friends at home and in his regiment. Yet, he lay there deserted by all except his dog. I looked on, unmoved, at battles which decided the future of nations. Tearless, I had given orders which brought death to thousands. Yet, here I was stirred, profoundly stirred, stirred to tears. And by what? By the grief of one dog.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

148. “The reason the American Army does so well in wartime is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices it on a daily basis.” – Karl Dönitz 

149. “War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” – William Tecumseh Sherman

150. “These Marines left their home. All these great Americans left their home, signed up during a time of war, and said, ‘I wanna do that,’ and we owe them so much gratitude. I am so, so proud, and they understand that in our profession, there can be no second place. There can be no losing because the weight of our nation rests on their shoulders.” – Bradley Kasal

151. “An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.” – Mao Zedong

152. “The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.” – Edward Gibbon

153. “Two out of every three professional officers considered that wars were made for armies and not armies for wars.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

154. “To the soldier, luck is merely another word for skill.” – Patrick MacGill

155. “We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.” – Cynthia Ozick

156. “A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments.” – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

157. “The most vital quality a soldier can possess is self-confidence.” – George Patton

158. “The hand of the aggressor is stayed by strength and strength alone.” – Dwight Eisenhower

159. “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.” – Helmuth von Moltke

160. “Success in battle is not a function of how many show up, but who they are.” – Robert H. Barrow

161. “War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.” – William Tecumseh Sherman

162. “‘Kill every enemy twice,’ Wilky said. ‘Better than getting shot by a soldier pretending to be dead.'” – Joseph Bruchac

163. “In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight Eisenhower

164. “It’s almost worth having been in the army for the joy your freedom gives you.” – John Dos Passos

165. “Heroes may not live long in years, but they live forever in the stories.” – Amit Kalantri

166. “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep. I am afraid of sheep led by a lion.” – Alexander the Great

167. “No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.” – William Penn

168. “Soldiers can sometimes make decisions that are smarter than the orders they have been given.” – Orson Scott Card

169. “The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The realist adjusts the sails.” – William Arthur Ward

170. “The best way out is always through.” – Robert Frost

171. “Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston S. Churchill

172. “I’m a soldier, ready for whatever.” – Anonymous

173. “It’s better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out.” – John Lennon

174. “We are parlor soldiers. The rugged battle of fate. Where strength is born, we shun.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

175. “Patriotism demands of us sustained sacrifice.” – Chiang Kai-shek

176. “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because, without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” – Maya Angelou

177. “Brave soldier, never fear. Even though your death is near.” – Hans Christian Andersen

178. “Self-denial and self-discipline, however, will be recognized as the outstanding qualities of a good soldier.” – William Lyon Mackenzie King

179. “If I charge, follow me. If I retreat, kill me. If I die, me.” – United States Marine Corps

180. “Therefore, a victorious army first wins and then seeks battle. A defeated army first battles and then seeks victory.” – Sun Tzu

181. “Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuvre. The greater the general, the more he contributes in manoeuvre, the less he demands in slaughter.” – Winston Churchill

182. “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.” – Dwight Eisenhower

183. “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” – Oliver Hazard Perry

184. “We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.” – Winston Churchill

185. “A good navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guarantee of peace.” – Theodore Roosevelt

186. “Civilians enjoy their time because soldiers sacrifice their time.” – Amit Kalantri

187. “Those who do not appreciate the soldiers, and instead, pompously talk about peace should try to live a single day without the soldiers.” – Abhijit Naskar

188. “Soldiers are citizens of death’s grey land, drawing no dividend from time’s tomorrows.” – Siegfried Sassoon

189. “Battles are sometimes won by generals. Wars are nearly always won by sergeants and privates.” – Frank Ezra Adcock