Duke Of Wellington Quotes & Sayings

#1. Yes, about ten minutes.

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#2. I have no small talk and Peel has no manners.

Duke Of Wellington

#3. The hardest thing of all for a soldier is to retreat.

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#4. The scum of the earth ... but what fine soldiers we have made them.

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#5. Always make water when you can.

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#6. Napoleon has humbugged me, by God; he has gained twenty-four hours' march on me.

Duke Of Wellington

#7. I acknowledge that I should not like to see again such loss as I sustained on
the 23rd September, even if attended by such a gain.

Duke Of Wellington

#8. An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay and discuss them.

Duke Of Wellington

#9. Today when a man gets married he gets a home, a housekeeper, a cook, a cheering squad and another paycheck. When a woman marries, she gets a boarder. To define it rudely but not ineptly, engineering is the art of doing that well with one dollar, which any bungler can do with two after a fashion.

Duke Of Wellington

#10. The British soldiers are fellows who have all enlisted for drink. That is the plain fact - they have all enlisted for drink.

Duke Of Wellington

#11. Call on a business man only at business times, and on business; transact your business, and go about your business, in order to give him time to finish his business.

Duke Of Wellington

#12. My rule always was to do the business of the day in the day.

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#13. I attribute my success on the battlefield to always being on the spot to see and do everything for myself

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#14. I have seen their backs before.

Duke Of Wellington

#15. I am not only not prepared to bring forward any measure of this nature, but I will at once declare that, as far as I am concerned, as long as I hold any station in the Government of the country, I shall always feel it my duty to resist such measures when proposed by others.

Duke Of Wellington

#16. Believe me that every man you see in a military uniform is not a hero.

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#17. There is no mistake; there has been no mistake; and there shall be no mistake.

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#18. A great country cannot wage a little war.

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#19. The only thing that they can be relied on to do is to gallop too far and too fast.

Duke Of Wellington

#20. Wise people learn when they can; fools learn when they must.

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#21. There are no manifestos like cannon and musketry.

Duke Of Wellington

#22. When one begins to turn in bed, it is time to get up.

Duke Of Wellington

#23. You must build your House of Parliament on the river: so ... that the populace cannot exact their demands by sitting down round you.

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#24. I see no reason to suppose these machines will ever force themselves into general use.

Duke Of Wellington

#25. I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life.

Duke Of Wellington

#26. All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called 'guess what was at the other side of the hill'.

Duke Of Wellington

#27. It is very true that I have said that I considered Napoleon's presence in the field equal to forty thousand men in the balance. This is a very loose way of talking; but the idea is a very different one from that of his presence at a battle being equal to a reinforcement of forty thousand men.

Duke Of Wellington

#28. God deliver me from my friends! I'll take care of my enemies myself.

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#29. A great country ought not to make little wars.

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#30. There is nothing on earth so stupid as a gallant officer.

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#31. We always have been, we are, and I hope that we always shall be detested in France.

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#32. If you believe that you will believe anything.

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#33. To define it rudely but not ineptly, engineering is the art of doing for 10 shillings what any fool can do for a pound

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#34. I have got an infamous army, very weak and ill-equipped, and a very inexperienced staff.

Duke Of Wellington

#35. A great country can have no such thing as a little war.

Duke Of Wellington

#36. Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.

Duke Of Wellington

#37. When other Generals make mistakes their armies are beaten; when I get into a hole, my men pull me out of it.

Duke Of Wellington

#38. As Lord Chesterfield said of the generals of his day, 'I only hope that when the enemy reads the list of their names, he trembles as I do.'

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#39. Rashness is oftener the resort of cowardice than of courage.

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#40. Always get over heavy ground as lightly as you can.

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#41. If you had seen one day of war, you would pray to God that you would never see another.

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#42. I used to say of Napoleon that his presence on the field made the difference of forty thousand men.

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#43. Our army is composed of the scum of the earth - the mere scum of the earth.

Duke Of Wellington

#44. The French system of conscription brings together a fair sample of all classes; ours is composed of the scum of the earth - the mere scum of the earth. It is only wonderful that we should be able to make so much out of them afterwards.

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#45. Troops would never be deficient in courage, if they could only know how deficient in it their enemies were.

Duke Of Wellington

#46. As a member of the Protestant British squirearchy ruling Ireland, he was touchy about his Irish origins. When in later life an enthusiastic Gael commended him as a famous Irishman, he replied A man can be born in a stable, and yet not be an animal.

Duke Of Wellington