90 Military Command Quotes

Following is our list of military command quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about military leadership.

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Famous Military Command Quotes

The nature of encounter operations required of the commanders limitless initiative and constant readiness to take the responsibility for military actions. — Georgy Zhukov

When placed in command, take charge. — Norman Schwarzkopf

Diversity in counsel, unity in command. — Cyrus the Great

A compliance with the minutiae of military courtesy is a mark of well-disciplined troops. — John A. Lejeune

To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less. - Andre Malraux

To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less. — Andre Malraux

If you want to go anywhere in modern war, in the air, on the sea, on the land, you must have command of the air. — William Halsey

Only one military organization can hold and gain ground in war-a ground army supported by tactical aviation with supply lines guarded by the navy. — Omar N. Bradley

To be a good soldier, you must love the army. To be a good commander, you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love. — Robert E. Lee

Army requests immediate permission to surrender in order to save lives of remaining troops. — Friedrich Paulus

Being in command means making tough decisions. Not being in command means shutting up and doing what you're told. --Artemis Fowl — Eoin Colfer

the leader of armies is the arbiter of the people's fate, the man on whom it depends whether the nation shall be in peace or in peril. — Sun Tzu

Any commander who fails to exceed his authority is not of much use to his subordinates. — Arleigh Burke

A military is built to fight. Our military must regard combat capability as the criterion to meet in all its work and focus on how to win when it is called on. — Xi Jinping

Who has not served cannot command. — John Florio

And regulation entails organizational effectiveness, a chain of command, and a structure for logistical support. — Sun Tzu

Short Military Command Quotes

  • Never give an order that can't be obeyed. — Douglas MacArthur
  • Secret operations are essential in war; upon them the army relies to make its every move. — Sun Tzu
  • To conquer the command in the air means victory; to be beaten in the air means defeat. — Giulio Douhet
  • Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. — Euripides
Military command quote Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge.
Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge.

Military Command And Control Quotes

To say that you now trust the Russian military command and control system because some Russian general told you from the bottom of his heart that's the case, strikes me as most unrealistic. — William Odom

To say that you now trust the Russian military command and control system because some Russian general told you from the bottom of his heart that's the case, strikes me as most unrealistic. — William Eldridge Odom

If officers desire to have control over their commands, they must remain habitually with them, industriously attend to their instruction and comfort, and in battle lead them well. — Stonewall Jackson

Military command quote Always do everything you ask of those you command.
Always do everything you ask of those you command.

Most people associate command and control leadership with the military. — Margaret J. Wheatley

The budget for nuclear forces in the United States is on the order of $25 billion or so. That includes warheads, delivery systems, command and control; does not include environmental clean-up, which is another maybe $10 billion or so. So that's about 5% of the U.S. military budget. — John Burroughs

In a military operation, the command and control elements are a legitimate target. — Stephen Hadley

Military Leadership Quotes

Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way. — George S. Patton

Effective leaders are made, not born. They learn from trial and error, and from experience. — Colin Powell

A leader is a man who can adapt principles to circumstances. — George S. Patton

Military command quote Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.
Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

I made efforts to swallow tears and to protect the species of the Japanese nation. — Hirohito

You can't blow an uncertain trumpet. - Theodore Hesburgh

You can't blow an uncertain trumpet. — Theodore Hesburgh

Fight the enemy with the weapons he lacks. — Alexander Suvorov

Military command quote I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.
I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. — Colin Powell

A good general not only sees the way to victory; he also knows when victory is impossible. — Polybius

Be the hunter, not the hunted: Never allow your unit to be caught with its guard down. — James Mattis

Following is one of the most underrated aspects of leadership.... I have seen many a good [military unit] underachieve, because someone...thought the commander was incompetent, and quietly worked to undermine his authority. — William H. McRaven

Military Leader Quotes

The drums of a World War are beating. Beware of the military-industrial complex and the warmongers who exploit tragedy to advocate for more war. A global war would lead to immeasurable suffering. Diplomacy, conversation between leaders is the way out. — Lex Fridman

I am a military police officer and I have served on two deployments my first was to Iraq, in a medical unit, and my second deployment was to Kuwait, as a military police platoon leader. — Tulsi Gabbard

Tell the Truth, and speak from your pay-grade. Don't try to answer questions that would better be directed to the battalion commander or Gen. William Westmoreland or President Lyndon Johnson. If you are a squad leader, answer questions about what you know and do. — Hal Moore

Everywhere that the struggle for national freedom has triumphed, once the authorities agreed, there were military coups d'etat that overthrew their leaders. That is the result time and time again. — Ahmed Ben Bella

No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique. — Sun Tzu

Cities can be rebuilt, industries can be rebuilt, what really matters are strategy forces, military forces and the cadres leaders, political, military and economic. — Richard Pipes

Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity. — Karl von Clausewitz

A leader is the man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don't want to do, and like it. — Harry S. Truman

The majority of people are timid by nature, and that is why they constantly exaggerate danger. all influences on the military leader, therefore, combine to give him a false impression of his opponent's strength, and from this arises a new source of indecision. — Carl von Clausewitz

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. — George S. Patton

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More Military Command Quotes

Those who were adept and brave fellows I have made military commanders. Those who were quick and nimble I have made herders of horses. Those who were not adept I have given a small whip and sent to be shepherds — Genghis Khan

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes. — Andrew Carnegie

The commander must decide how he will fight the battle before it begins. He must then decide who he will use the military effort at his disposal to force the battle to swing the way he wishes it to go; he must make the enemy dance to his tune from the beginning and not vice versa. — Bernard Law Montgomery

But courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility. — Erwin Rommel

In 1949, Washington led the formation of NATO and with it effectively assumed command of the Western world’s surviving military might. The civilian head may well be a Belgian one year, a Brit the next, but the military commander is always an American, and by far the greatest firepower within NATO is American. No matter what the treaty says, NATO’s Supreme Commander ultimately answers to Washington. The UK and France would learn this at their expense during the Suez Crisis of 1956 — when they were compelled by American pressure to cease their occupation of the canal zone, losing most of their influence in the Middle East as a result — that a NATO country does not hold a strategic naval policy without first asking Washington. — Tim Marshall

The Russians have repeatedly offered to settle. If you look at the Minsk accords, which the Russians offered to settle for, they look like a really good deal today. Let's be honest: it’s a US war against Russia, to essentially sacrifice the flower of Ukrainian youth in an abattoir of death and destruction for the geopolitical ambition of the neocons, oft-stated, of regime change for Vladimir Putin and exhausting the Russian military so that they can't fight anywhere else in the world. President Biden has said that was his intention — to get rid of Vladimir Putin. His Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, in April 2022, said that our purpose here is to exhaust the Russian army. What does that mean, exhaust? It means throwing Ukrainians at them. My son fought over there, side-by-side with the Ukrainians and we've sacrificed 300,000 of them. The commander of the special forces unit in the Ukraine, which is probably the most elite fighting force in Europe, has said 80% of his troops are dead or are wounded and they cannot rebuild the unit. Right now, the Russians are killing Ukrainians at a ratio of either 1:5 or 1:8, depending on what data you believe. — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

President Eisenhower was fed up with the interservice rivalries. Having commanded the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe during World War II, he held deep convictions regarding the value of unity among the military services. As president, he had been a crusader against the excessive waste of resources that came from service duplication. — Annie Jacobsen

Renown awaits the commander who first restores artillery to its prime importance on the battlefield. — Winston Churchill

They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. — Eugene V. Debs

Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses. — Juvenal

Don't say it's impossible! Turn your command over to the next officer. If he can't do it, I'll find someone who can, even if I have to take him from the ranks! — Stonewall Jackson

To have command of the air means to be able to cut an enemy's army and navy off from their bases of operation and nullify their chances of winning the war. — Giulio Douhet

Learn to obey before you command. — Solon

The most consistently successful commanders, when faced by an enemy in a position that was strong naturally or materially, have hardly ever tackled it in a direct way. And when, under pressure of circumstances, they have risked a direct attack, the result has commonly been to blot their record with a failure. — B. H. Liddell Hart

I yield to no man in sympathy for the gallant men under my command; but I am obliged to sweat them tonight, so that I may save their blood tomorrow. — Stonewall Jackson

That is what I want to make clear today. A man with a long history of racial discrimination, who traffics in dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far, dark reaches of the Internet, should never run our government or command our military. — Hillary Clinton

A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive. — Noah Webster

Obedience alone gives the right to command. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The First Lady and I both spotted the President standing under the mistletoe and she moved in to grab a kiss from him following a dinner for Combatant Commanders and military leadership at Blair House in Washington, D.C. — Pete Souza

So long as I'm Commander-in-Chief, we will sustain the strongest military the world has ever known. When you take off the uniform, we will serve you as well as you've served us - because no one who fights for this country should have to fight for a job, or a roof over their head, or the care that they need when they come home. — Barack Obama

Remember, it is the president's constitutional duty to provide a strong national defense. Don't insert politics into national security. Listen to your ground commanders. They know better than anyone what our military's needs are. Have somebody strong at home who can provide you with needed support 'off the battle field.' — Ryan Zinke

All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. — Abraham Lincoln

Computers had their origin in military cryptography-in a sense, every computer game represents the commandeering of a military code-breaking apparatus for purposes of human expression. — Austin Grossman

If you look at the way Donald Trump has treated law enforcement, if you look at the way he's treated the military, this is a man who fully understands the burden of leadership and the responsibility he has as the commander in chief. — Sebastian Gorka

We need a president who will lead with a stronger, more consistent foreign policy. We also need our commander in chief to put more faith in military leadership who have all of the combat experience. It’s bad policy to try to micromanage too much operationally and tactically from a desk in the Oval Office. — Lee Zeldin

Triumphant science and technology are only at the threshold of man's command over sources of energy so stupendous that, if used for military purposes, they can wipe out our entire civilization. — Cordell Hull

It has not fallen to your lot to command great armies. You had to create them, organize them and inspire them. — Winston Churchill

I was surprised how open and unguarded the military was. I expected more scrutiny, more supervision from command. — Sebastian Junger

At the beginning, Lincoln was so inexperienced he had reverence for military expertise, not realizing that there wasn't any military expertise, that the most anybody had commanded up to that point had been somebody, some troops in the Mexican War, and it had been years ago. — David Herbert Donald

America's military is the best in the world, but this president [Barack Obama] is hollowing out our military. We need a commander in chief that believes in American exceptionalism again. — Bobby Jindal

There are certain things in war of which the commander alone comprehends the importance. Nothing but his superior firmness and ability can subdue and surmount all difficulties. — Napoleon Bonaparte

The United States Central Command of the Armed Forces has asked Geraldo Rivera to leave Iraq. It should also be noted that the only three other people that the U.S. military has asked to leave Iraq are Saddam Hussein and his two sons. — Jon Stewart

The commander of the forces of a large State may be carried off, but the will of even a common man cannot be taken from him. — Confucius

This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them! — Albert Einstein

One thing the military does far better than business is train its own leaders. I can't go to IBM and hire a battalion commander. They don't have any. — Colin Powell

The American people want to see our nation standing tall on the world stage again. They want to see us supporting our military, rebuilding our military, commanding the respect of the world, and they want to see the American economy off to the races again. — Mike Pence

I believe we should work and want to have the most powerful military, but hope we never have to use it. I strongly believe the military should know they are 100 percent supported by the commander in chief. — Phil Roe

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