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

Do your duty as you see it, and damn the consequences.

Human beings are made up of flesh and blood, and a miracle fiber called courage.

Officers must assert themselves by example and by voice.

To be a successful soldier, you must know history.

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.

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.

Anyone in any walk of life who is content with mediocrity is untrue to himself and to American tradition.

No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making other bastards die for their country.

A piece of spaghetti or a military unit can only be led from the front end.

All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood.

No sane man is unafraid in battle, but discipline produces in him a form of vicarious courage.

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

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

Do more than is required of you.

A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood.

Throughout history wars have been lost because of armies not crossing rivers.

The bottom line is what we do might not be the safest so there is always some risk but we are ready to take that into account because we love racing and we love motor sports and it is dangerous.

To me, nothing else about a tree is so remarkable as the extreme delicacy of the mechanism by which it grows and lives.

In this universe the top end is light and the bottom end is real hard stuff.

The fine, hair-like rootlets at the bottom and the microscopical cells of the leaves at the top.

Any journey around Islington involves hundreds of speed bumps that seem to tear the bottom of your car off.

The role of humour is to make people fall down and writhe on the Axminster, and that is the top and bottom of it.

One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.’ To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: ‘This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.

Illogically, I tend to assume that if you ( Philip Larkin) dream of caning schoolgirls bottoms, it disqualifies you from dismissing half the nation as work-shy.