George Patton

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their
ingenuity.
– George Patton

You must be single-minded. Drive for the one thing on which you have decided.
– George Patton

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.
– George Patton

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

Better to fight for something than live for nothing.
– George Patton

Do your duty as you see it, and damn the consequences!
– George Patton

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.
– George Patton

No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair.
– George Patton

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

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

Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets.
– George Patton

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

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

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?
– George Patton

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

Coward: someone who in a bad situation thinks with his feet.
– George Patton

It is the unconquerable nature of man and not the nature of the weapon he uses that ensures
victory.
– George Patton

If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn’t thinking.
– George Patton

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.
– George Patton

Pressure makes diamonds.
– George Patton

My men can eat their belts, but my tanks have gotta have gas.
– George Patton

My flanks are something for the enemy to worry about, not me. Before he finds out where my
flanks are, I’ll be cutting the bastard’s throat.
– George Patton

Make your plans to fit the circumstances.
– George Patton

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

An active mind cannot exist in an inactive body.
– George Patton

If you can’t get them to salute when they should salute and wear the clothes you tell them
to wear, how are you going to get them to die for their country?
– George Patton

Success demands a high level of logistical and organizational competence.
– George Patton

There is a time to take counsel of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear.
– George Patton

It is absurd to believe that soldiers who cannot be made to wear the proper uniform can be
induced to move forward in battle. Officers who fail to perform their duty by correcting small
violations and in enforcing proper conduct are incapable of leading.
– George Patton

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

You’re never beaten until you admit it.
– George Patton

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

There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at
hand to inflict the maximum amount of wound, death, and destruction on the enemy in the
minimum amount of time.
– George Patton

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

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.
– George Patton

Always do everything you ask of those you command.
– George Patton

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

All men are timid on entering any fight. Whether it is the first or the last fight, all of us are
timid. Cowards are those who let their timidity get the better of their manhood.
– George Patton

An army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats, and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is
pure horse shit.
– George Patton

It is only by doing things others have not that one can advance.
– George Patton

When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to
them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon
tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can’t run an army without profanity; and
it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn’t fight its way out of a
piss-soaked paper bag.
– George Patton

I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood.
– George Patton

Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man.
– George Patton

We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards
who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home.
– George Patton

War is an art and as such is not susceptible of explanation by fixed formula.
– George Patton

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.
– George Patton

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

My men don’t surrender. I don’t want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured
unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back.
– George Patton

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

May God have mercy for my enemies because I won’t.
– George Patton

The more I see of Arabs the less I think of them. By having studied them a good deal I have
found out the trouble. They are the mixture of all the bad races on earth, and they get worse
from west to east, because the eastern ones have had more crosses.
– George Patton

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