Top 100 Good Soldier Quotes
#1. And Oliver North was really a good soldier, up to the last moment, shoving memos into the shredder and defending the policy to the end.
Bobby Ray Inman
#2. In order to be a good soldier it is necessary to know how to dance.
Plato
#3. A good soldier never leaves a man behind.
Sarge
#4. 3You therefore must endurea hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. + 4No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.
Anonymous
#5. A good soldier has his heart and soul in it. When he receives an order, he gets a hard on, and when he drives his lance through his enemy's guts, he comes.
Bertolt Brecht
#7. The good soldier swears to kill. Fire the cannon, mount the barricade, lock and load. Smell your brother's blood on your shirt. Wipe your sister's brains off your face. Die, if you have to, so they'll live. Kill to keep your people alive, live to kill some more.
Laurie Halse Anderson
#8. The first quality of a soldier is constancy in enduring fatigue and hardship. Courage is only the second. Poverty privation and want are the school of the good soldier.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#9. Paks, if you've got a fault it's that you're too willing to be ruled. I know what you'll say - you'll say that's how a good soldier is.
Elizabeth Moon
#10. Ford Maddox Ford's 'The Good Soldier' is my favourite novel. I first read it in the 1950s and have read it about 20 times since. It's possibly the best-constructed book in the English language.
Ruth Rendell
#11. My favourite book - 'The Good Soldier' by Ford Madox Ford, which I have read about 20 times - is different from my favourite author, who is Iris Murdoch. I find her books exciting and unputdownable. Her characters are so carefully studied and in-depth; I love that.
Ruth Rendell
#12. I think it's possible - perhaps even necessary - to find comedy in any war. I mean, look at the brilliant work which was done by Joseph Heller and Richard Hooker (M*A*S*H) and Jaroslav Hasek (The Good Soldier Svejk - which I haven't read, but have heard was funny).
Dave Abrams
#13. We've got to have mind-collecting weeks in our zendos where your mind tries to fly off like a Tinker Toy and like a good soldier you put it back together with your eyes closed except of course the whole thing is wrong.
Jack Kerouac
#14. Like many people, I only knew of Ford Madox Ford through a book called 'The Good Soldier,' which is everybody's favorite Ford Madox Ford if they have one, but I came to read 'Parade's End' when it was suggested via Damien Timmer of Mammoth Screen.
Tom Stoppard
#15. I read 'The Good Soldier' by Ford Madox Ford again every so often.
Ned Beauman
#16. Every good soldier knew when to hide.
Anonymous
#17. 'The Good Soldier' is an odd and maybe even unique book. That it is a masterpiece, almost a perfect novel, comes as a repeated surprise even to readers who have read it before.
Jane Smiley
#18. The colored man has been accustomed all his life to lean on the white man, and if a good officer is placed over him, he will learn readily and make a good soldier.
Ulysses S. Grant
#19. Every good soldier is trained for the battle field. God is prepping you my darlings.
Tonto Dikeh
#20. No amount of pay ever made a good soldier, a good teacher, a good artist, or a good workman.
John Ruskin
#21. War is killing the individual in it unless he has learned livingness - if he had it he wouldn't be a good soldier.
Georgia O'Keeffe
#22. I follow my orders without question, as a good soldier would. You ask the same from your soldiers.'
'No, I ask them to be good people. That way if they follow my orders, I will know I am doing the right thing.
Jennifer A. Nielsen
#23. But I understood Bear Otto's desire to become a noble man, a man like Billy Ansel, and I respected that, naturally. I just wished the boy had more ways of imagining the thing than by becoming a good soldier. But that's boys, I guess.
Russell Banks
#24. Killing Japanese didn't bother me at that time. It was getting the war over with that bothered me. So I wasn't worried particularly about how many people we killed in getting the job done ... . All war is immoral, and if you let it bother you, you're not a good soldier.
Ronald Schaffer
#25. Bonaparte knew but one merit, and rewarded in one and the same way the good soldier, the good astronomer, the good poet, the good player.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#26. A good soldier, whether he leads a platoon or an army, is expected to look backward as well as forward; but he must think only forward.
Douglas MacArthur
#27. I was a good soldier in the British Army. I was born in a very, very poor family. And I enlisted to escape hunger. But my officers were Scottish and they loved me. The Scots are good, you know.
Idi Amin
#28. Within the soul of each Vietnam veteran there is probably something that says "Bad war, good soldier." Only now are Americans beginning to separate the war from the warrior.
Max Cleland
#29. To be a good soldier you must love the army. But to be a good officer you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love. That is ... a very hard thing to do. No other profession requires it. That is one reason why there are so very few good officers. Although there are many good men.
Michael Shaara
#30. You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Anonymous
#31. And it was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline, that a good soldier should dread his officers far more than the enemy.
Edward Gibbon
#32. The good soldier did as he was told, and if he had any sense at all volunteered for nothing, especially promotion.
Iain M. Banks
#33. He who neither drinks, nor smokes, nor dances, he who preaches & even occasionally practice piety, temperance and celibacy, is generally a saint, or a mahatma or more likely a humbug but he certainly won't make a leader or for that matter a good soldier
Sam Manekshaw
#34. I mean, Emily Harris was his wife. And she seemed to resent his leadership, but on the other hand, she felt like a good soldier, that he had to be the leader.
Patty Hearst
#35. It was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline that good soldier should dread his own officers far more than the enemy
Edward Gibbon
#36. Gates should have exceeded Washington as a military leader. He had long experience in a professional army and was more loved by his men. But Washington's character was superior to that of his rival, and it made him a great man, whereas Gates was merely a good soldier.
John Ferling
#37. No man was ever a good soldier but the man who goes into the battle determined to conquer, or not to come back from the battle field (cheers). No other principle makes a good soldier.
Daniel O'Connell
#38. if it comes to a choice between being a good soldier and a good human being -- try to be a good human being".
Anton Myrer
#39. They say a good soldier fights a battle, never a war. That's for civilians.
John Steinbeck
#40. Sounds like the rival is a good soldier, Cono said. Like the Russians say, a bad soldier is one who doesn't try to become a general.
Victor Robert Lee
#41. Self-denial and self-discipline, however, will be recognized as the outstanding qualities of a good soldier.
William Lyon Mackenzie King
#42. Thomas looked around and tried not to let his duty turn him bitter. These were good men, and he would not leave them behind. He had chosen this, an unselfish life.
Jessica Fortunato
#43. So for, you know, for a good 20 years now I've been involved with veterans and soldiers and in support of them no matter what they're doing.
Gary Sinise
#44. This is what opportunity brings with it. It's the self-determination of man. Every man in the course of his life eternal life undergoes countless changes and has to appear once in this worlds as a thief in certain periods of his activity.
Jaroslav Hasek
#45. If slaves will make good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong.
Howell Cobb
#46. when both are sincere and good, no men so penetrate each other, and so amalgamate with each other, as an old priest and an old soldier. At bottom, the man is the same. The one has devoted his life to his country here below, the other to his country on high; that is the only difference.
Victor Hugo
#48. You can't equate the game we play to a war. Kellen Winslow said he's a soldier. No, he's not. This is not a war ... not a good comparison.
Ken Rosenthal
#49. I don't think I could be a foot soldier. I don't know if I could take orders too good. I'm a little lazy.
Benicio Del Toro
#50. The sinews of war are not gold, but good soldiers; for gold alone will not procure good soldiers, but good soldiers will always procure gold.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#51. There are one or two very good women military historians who use imagination, great study and research; they can put themselves in the boots of the soldier.
Antony Beevor
#52. Scared. That's good. A fine soldier is always scared. Makes you normal. It's how you respond to it that makes or breaks you.
James Dashner
#53. Keep unscathed the good name; keep out of peril the honor without which even your battered old soldier who is hobbling into his grave on half-pay and a wooden leg would not change with Achilles.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
#54. given this time is not good." 8 Hushai continued, "You know your father and his men. They are warriors and are desperate like a wild bear robbed of her cubs. Your father is an experienced soldier
Anonymous
#55. The U.S. Army cancelled an order for 600,000 black berets that were made in China. It's not just that they were made by slave laborers. It's that no soldier can feel good about himself wearing headgear from the Kathie Lee Collection.
Argus Hamilton
#56. Alone of human beings the good and wise mother stands on a plane of equal honor with the bravest soldier; for she has gladly gone down to the brink of the chasm of darkness to bring back the children in whose hands rests the future of the years.
Theodore Roosevelt
#57. When you join the army, you are asked to lay down your life for your country. That is a tremendous oath to take. In return, a good country should offer that soldier every possible means it can to allow that soldier to stay alive and, upon return, healthy - both mentally and physically.
Michael Winter
#58. At 19, your brain hasn't finished wiring itself. So the first time you have a good friend die, most people don't go through that at 19. Soldiers do. They're facing life in this accelerated, compressed form, and a lot of times, they're not ready for it.
Sebastian Junger
#59. You want to make me the best soldier possible. Go down and look at the standings. Look at the all-time standings. So far you're doing an excellent job with me. Congratulations. Now when are you going to put me up against a good army?
Orson Scott Card
#60. We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers - we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals.
Erich Maria Remarque
#61. I suppose you want me to give certificates to all the contestants? Little plastic trophies to every single athlete or soldier for participation? Should we all line up and shake hands and tell each other, Good game? No!
Rick Riordan
#62. The most privileged position, in life as in society, is that of an educated soldier. Rough warriors, at any rate, remain true to their character, and as great strength is usually the cover for good nature, we get on with them at need.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#64. It is essential to persuade the soldier that those he is being urged to massacre are bandits who do not deserve to live; before killing other good, decent fellows like himself, his gun would fall from his hands.
Andre Gide
#66. Johnny Reb' laughed. 'What's it to a soldier the right and the wrong of it all? He's there for the fighting, that's what he likes. Doesn't matter who you're fighting, long as he gives you a good fight.
Alexandra Ripley
#67. Gold will not always get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can get you gold.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#68. Good soldiers never pass up a chance to eat or sleep. They never know how much they'll be called on to do before the next chance.
Lois McMaster Bujold
#69. One should never send soldiers on a mission based on just good will and good intent. Unfortunately, that can mean one has to stand by and watch human rights abuses take place.
Thomas De Maiziere
#70. I try to be a good cop. I try to be a good little soldier and follow orders up to a point. But in the end I'm not really a cop, or a soldier. I am a legally sanctioned murderer. I am the Executioner.
Laurell K. Hamilton
#71. In fact, it was part of the Tyrannian military tradition that a little discomfort on the part of the soldier was good for discipline.
Isaac Asimov
#72. On every pack leaned an M16, except Lori's. Her son was playing soldier with it in the bleachers. There was no clip in it, which was a good thing.
Rick Bragg
#73. For an artist, a good place to be is you have some kind of influence and power to get things done, but in your essence you remain a nomad or a soldier facing a difficulty to be overcome.
Cai Guo-Qiang
#74. Not very good with death? Father was a military man, and military men lived with death; lived for death; lived on death. To a professional soldier, oddly enough, death was life.
Alan Bradley
#75. I sincerely believe that I have served a criminal. I led my soldiers in good conscience ... but for a criminal government.
Walter Model
#76. You know a constellation of imperishable values. Live by the mighty truth and power of God. Live above the sludge of a sick society. Live among dispirited humans as the vanguard of peace and good news. Remember, our Commander in Chief has no use for tin soldiers.
Carl F. H. Henry
#77. Every morning is good news, every child that is born is good news, every just man is good news, every singer is good news, because every singer is one less soldier.
Facundo Cabral
#78. One sailor will do us more good than two soldiers.
John Adams
#79. The good citizen when he opens his door in the evening must be banker, golfer, husband, father; not a nomad wandering the desert, a mystic staring at the sky, a debauchee in the slums of San Francisco, a soldier heading a revolution, a pariah howling with skepticism and solitude.
Virginia Woolf
#80. She was a soldier, a warrior in her way as much as I. This could have happened two hundred times these past twenty years. She knew it, and so did I. It was a good day to die.
Robert Jordan
#81. It is impossible to give a soldier a good education without making him a deserter. His natural foe is the government that drills him.
Henry David Thoreau
#82. 'The Dictator' lands somewhere between wan Mel Brooks and good Adam Sandler, whose 'You Don't Mess With the Zohan,' about an Israeli Special Forces soldier at a hair salon, manages to strike better contrasts with vaguely similar culture differences - it's a nuttier movie, too.
Wesley Morris
#83. That's what's wrong with the country. There are too many 'good soldiers' accepting too many bad decisions.
Shirley Chisholm
#85. After my time working for the government as a soldier, I reacquainted myself with the possibilities of government as a force for good beyond its awesome capacity as a force in war and security.
Wes Moore
#86. It's always said that when one is a soldier who dies in battle, you go to a very high world. There's a great and good karma for the soldier who dies in battle because it's an extended selfless giving.
Frederick Lenz
#87. I'm brilliant as well as skilled," he said modestly. "It's a great burden, all of that on top of my angelic good looks. But I try to soldier on as best I can.
Jim Butcher
#88. He'd been a successful soldier, as these things went; he'd generally been on the winning side, and had killed more of the enemy by good if dull tactics than his own men by bad but exciting ones.
Terry Pratchett
#89. One learns a good deal in the school of suffering. I wonder what would have happened to me if I had had an easy life, and had not had the privilege of tasting the joys of jail and all it means." ~ Badsha Khan, quote in Nonviolent Soldier of Islam, p. 87
Eknath Easwaran
#90. For what it's worth" - he rose from his seat, moved around the table and bent over her, whispering in her ear as he pressed a kiss to her cheek - "I like you better in a pair of worn jeans, and I think you deserve someone who appreciates what he's got. Not someone out to have a good time.
J.M. Stewart
#91. Damn it all, it's the first duty of a soldier - it's the first duty of all Englishmen - to be able to tell a good lie in answer to a charge.
Ford Madox Ford
#92. I believe German soldiers are good and decent, and if they did anything wrong it was because of military necessity.
Wilhelm Keitel
#93. It is our job as parents, to instill principles and values in our children. So that when they depart from you, those principles and values won't depart from them. Mallory Bullard, a street soldier from the old school.
Drexel Deal
#96. TP53 seems to encode the greater good, like a suicide pill in the mouth of a soldier that dissolves only when it detects evidence that he is about to mutiny.
Matt Ridley
#97. There must be some good in the life of battle, for so many good men have enjoyed being soldiers.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#98. It isn't right to be obedient only when things go well; it is much harder to be a good, obedient soldier when things go badly and times are hard. Obedience and faith at such time is a virtue.
Wilhelm Keitel
#99. If I have got to be a soldier, I must be a good one, anything else is unthinkable.
Wilfred Owen
#100. I'm obsessed with trying to recount events as accurately and honestly as possible, but in practice the only thing I'm really any good at is telling you how I feel.
Jason Christopher Hartley
