I have every confidence in the ultimate success of our joint cause; but success in modern war requires something more than courage and a willingness to die: it requires careful preparation.
DOUGLAS MACARTHURWar’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war there is no substitute for victory.
More Douglas MacArthur Quotes
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The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point?but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
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.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
Have a good plan, execute it violently, and do it today.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
Life is a lively process of becoming.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
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.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
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.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
Preparedness is the key to success and victory.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of government power.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
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.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
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.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
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.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
No plan ever survives its first encounter with the enemy.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
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.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR -
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.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR