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