Patton Quotes

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

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

Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

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

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

No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.

Better to fight for something than live for nothing.

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

Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

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

Pressure makes diamonds

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed at some indefinite time in the future.

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

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

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

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

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.

When in doubt, ATTACK!

No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair.

I had a romance novel inside me, but I paid three sailors to beat it out of me with steel pipes.

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

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

Fatigue makes cowards of us all.

She wants me to take out Patton.” Barron’s brows draw together. “Take out? As in transform him?” “No,” I say. “As in take out to dinner. She thinks we’d make a good couple.

An active mind cannot exist in an inactive body.

...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.

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.

Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!

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.

He would have shaved the centaurs, dipped them in honey, covered them with feathers, and hung them up like a bunch of pinatas. I'm just saying." - Warren

A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood

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

To be a successful soldier, you must know history.

Do not make excuses, whether it's your fault or not.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.

I don’t fear failure. I only fear the slowing up of the engine inside of me which is saying, ‘Keep going, someone must be on top, why not you?

A real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood.

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.

Never draw a gun on a man unless you intend to kill him. And believe me, if you do intend to kill him he will already know it. Then he will feel the cold breath of the tomb.

There is no such thing as luck, merely opportunity meeting preparedness. George S. Patton Jr.

That's the point. Every kind of animal thinks its own kind of animal is wonderful. So people getting married think they're wonderful, and that they're going to have a baby-- that's wonderful, when actually they're as ugly as rhinoceroses. Just because we think we're so wonderful doesn't mean we really are. We could be really terrible animals and just never admit it because it would hurt so much.

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

You cannot be disciplined in great things and undisciplined in small things. Brave undisciplined men have no chance against the discipline and valour of other men. Have you seen a few policemen handle a crowd?

An Army is a team. It lives sleeps eats and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is pure horse shit

Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week. —George S. Patton

Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are and probably more so. They are not supermen

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.

Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men

If the victories we create in our heads were let loose on reality, the world we know would drown in blazing happiness.

There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. ... You can look him straight in the eye and say, "Son your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son of a Goddamned Bitch named Georgie Patton.

A man is not measured by how much he can take and stand but by how fast he regains once fallen.

continue to advance until you run out of ammunition. Then, dig in.

Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.

Always do more than is required of you.

War isn’t about dying for your country. It’s about making the enemy die for his.” Gen. George S. Patton

Coward: someone who in a bad situation thinks with his feet

Live for something rather than die for nothing. —George Patton

Zombies can't believe the energy we waste on nonfood pursuits.

Take not counsel of your fears

Every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he s not he s a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some it takes an hour. For some it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor his sense of duty to his country and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base.

Do your damnedest in an ostentatious manner all the time.

He who sweats more in training bleeds less in battle.

In his writings, Patton was shameless about his ambition to woo Lena to be his bride. He detailed the gradual progress he made, playing music for her on his violin, writing her poems, beguiling her with stories, engaging her in conversation. It was clear that he obsessed over her. He knew what he wanted and never relented until she was his.

A species in which everyone was General Patton would not succeed, any more than would a race in which everyone was Vincent van Gogh. I prefer to think that the planet needs athletes, philosophers, sex symbols, painters, scientists; it needs the warmhearted, the hardhearted, the coldhearted, and the weakhearted. It needs those who can devote their lives to studying how many droplets of water are secreted by the salivary glands of dogs under which circumstances, and it needs those who can capture the passing impression of cherry blossoms in a fourteen-syllable poem or devote twenty-five pages to the dissection of a small boy's feelings as he lies in bed in the dark waiting for his mother to kiss him goodnight...

Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God help me, I do love it so.

Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.” —General George S. Patton As

If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened.

For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.

Death can be more exciting than life.

People will find transformation and transcendence in a McDonald's hash brown if it's all they've got.

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

Battle is an orgy of disorder.

The mediocre leader tells. The good leader explains. The superior leader demonstrates. The great leader inspires.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” —General George S. Patton, Jr. General

The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!

Pack, on how he will run his Task Force: “We don’t defend. We attack constantly, and we don’t quit til we have every mammy-jammin’ fugitive back in custody. Attack, pursuit, exploitation. As Napoleon, and after him Patton said, “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace.

You’ve gotta respect everyone’s beliefs." No, you don’t. That’s what gets us in trouble. Look, you have to acknowledge everyone’s beliefs, and then you have to reserve the right to go: "That is fucking stupid. Are you kidding me?" I acknowledge that you believe that, that’s great, but I’m not going to respect it. I have an uncle that believes he saw Sasquatch. We do not believe him, nor do we respect him!

I want to experience as many different tastes, sights, emotions, conflicts, and cultures as possible, so that I can expand the canvas of my memory and enrich my comedy.

Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom.

We just wanna be the happy bums that we are. That's all.

Son, only a pimp in a Louisiana whore- house carries pearl-handled revolvers. These are ivory.

All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital role. Don t ever let up. Don t ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain.

I am convinced that much more emphasis should be placed on history. The purpose of history is to learn how human beings react when exposed to the danger of wounds or death...

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.

Just drive down that road until you get blown up.

Are you missing the library again?" Seth asked, startling her as he walked into the room. Kendra turned to face her brother. "You caught me," she congratulated him. "I'm reading." "I bet the librarians back home are panicking. Summer vacation, and no Kendra Sorenson to keep them in business. Have they been sending you letters?" "Might not hurt you to pick up a book, just as an experiment." Whatever. I looked up the definition for 'nerd' in the dictionary. Know what it said?" "I bet you'll tell me." " 'If you're reading this, you are one.' " You're a riot." Kendra turned back to the journal, flipping to a random page. Seth took a seat on his bed across from her. "Kendra, seriously, I can sort of see reading a cool book for fun, but dusty old journals? Really? Has anybody told you there are magical creatures out there?" He pointed out the window. "Has anybody told you some of those creatures can eat you?" Kendra responded. "I'm not reading these just for fun. They have good info." "like what? Patton and Lena smooching?" Kendra rolled her eyes. "I'm not telling. You'll end up in a tar pit." "There's a tar pit?" he said, perking up. "Where?

Its gaze unlocked a room in my nightmares which should have remained closed.

Cheap liquor is a magic potion that can turn you into a puppet cowboy before it kills you.

If I could find one word that would shudder the air like that frightened sob, that wordless prayer of my newly-born, who drew one breath, and with unopened eyes sank back into death; If I could break the world's cold heart with that cry, then this grief would lift and I could die.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me.

Anything's better than Gen X which is what we got. Thanks Douglas Coupland. We sound like a team of mutant vigalantees with frosted hair and chain wallets. Actually that's not completely horrible.

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 is never tired if the mind is not tired.

Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. 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.

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

I fought in many guises, Many names, but always me. And I see not in my blindness What the objects were I wrought, But as God rules o'er our bickerings It was through His will I fought. So forever in the future, Shall I battle as of yore, Dying to be born a... fighter, But to die again, once more.

The soul was not made to run on empty. But the soul doesn’t come with a gauge. The indicators of soul-fatigue are more subtle: • Things seem to bother you more than they should. Your spouse’s gum-chewing suddenly reveals to you a massive character flaw. • It’s hard to make up your mind about even a simple decision. • Impulses to eat or drink or spend or crave are harder to resist than they otherwise would be. • You are more likely to favor short-term gains in ways that leave you with high long-term costs. Israel ended up worshiping a golden calf simply because they grew tired of having to wait on Moses and God. • Your judgment is suffering. • You have less courage. “Fatigue makes cowards of us all” is a quote so ubiquitious that it has been attributed to General Patton and Vince Lombardi and Shakespeare. The same disciples who fled in fear when Jesus was crucified eventually sacrificed their lives for him. What changed was not their bodies, but their souls.

That shit [religion] was going on all over the planet. They would tell them about sky cookies, or sky pie, or sky baklava. And as each of these civilizations grew, they built ships; they'd go visit each other, and the one guy would walk off the boat and go,'Hey, did you hear the good news about the sky baklava?' and the first guy went,'It's CAKE, motherfucker! You're dead!

Dear Patton: I've been feeling blue lately but I wasn't sure if it had anything to do with the amount of rain we've had over the last few weeks. What are your thoughts on that? Ms. Diller Cary, NC Dear Ms. Diller: Rain can have a profound effect on someone inclined toward melancholy. I live in Los Angeles, and, as of this writing, we've just experienced three weeks of unending late-winter storms. The sky has been a limitless bowl of sludgy, hopeless gray. The ground, soaked and muddy, emits burbly, hissing spurts with every step, which sound like a scornful parent who sees no worth, hope, or value in their offspring. The morning light through my bedroom window promises nothing but a damp, unwelcoming day of thankless busywork and futile, doomed chores. My breakfast cereal tastes like being ostracized. My morning coffee fills my stomach with dread. What's the point of even answering this question? The rain--it will not stop. Even if I say something that will help you--which I won't, because I'm such a useless piece of shit--you'll eventually die and I'll die and everyone we know will die and this book will turn to dust and the universe will run down and stop, and dead dead dead dead dead. Dead. Read Chicken Soup for the Soul, I guess. Dead. Dead dead. Patton