Respected for their discipline, honor and ability to face the most intense situations in the name of liberty, the U.S. military knows a thing or two about surviving combat. These are some of our favorite quotes from our armed forces.

"Engage your brain before you engage your weapon."
– General James Mattis

"If I always appear prepared, it is because before entering an undertaking, I have meditated long and have foreseen what might occur. It is not genius where reveals to me suddenly and secretly what I should do in circumstances unexpected by others; it is thought and preparation."
– Napoléon Bonaparte

"If you find yourself in a fair fight – you didn't plan your mission properly."
– David Hackworth

"Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please."
– Niccolò Machiavelli

"No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy."
– Helmuth von Moltke

"God is on the side with the best artillery."
– Napoléon Bonaparte

"It would be a joke if the conduct of the victor had to be justified to the vanquished."
– Napoléon Bonaparte

"If you wage war, do it energetically and with severity. This is the only way to make it shorter and consequently less inhuman."
– Napoléon Bonaparte

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails."
– William Arthur Ward

"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions."
– Robert Lynd

"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute."
– George Bernard Shaw

"Optimists study English; pessimists study Chinese; and realists learn to use a Kalashnikov."
– Russian Proverb

"If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared."
– Niccolò Machiavelli

"That city is well-fortified which has a wall of men instead of brick."
– Lycurgus

"To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated."
– James Carse

"Battles really are the wildfires of history, out of which the survivors float like embers and then land to burn far beyond the original conflagration. To teach us those important lessons we must go back through the past to see precisely how such calamities affected now lost worlds—and yet still influence us today."
– Victor Davis Hanson

"In my opinion, the M1 rifle is the greatest battle implement ever devised."
– General George S. Patton

"I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other."
– Napoléon Bonaparte

"If the enemy is in range, so are you."
– Infantry Journal

"Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword, obviously never encountered automatic weapons."
– General Douglas MacArthur

"Do you know what a soldier is, young man? He's the chap who makes it possible for civilized folk to despise war."
– Allan Massie

"Tracer rounds work both ways."
– Army Ordinance Manual

"When you're short of everything but the enemy, you are in combat."
– Unknown

"Every plan is a good one - until the first shot is fired."
– Carl von Clausewitz

"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."
– Leon Trotsky

"What you can't solve with politics, you can solve with a 5.56."
– U.S. Marine Corps Expression

"These fallen heroes represent the character of a nation who has a long history of patriotism and honor – and a nation who has fought many battles to keep our country free from threats of terror."
– Michael N. Castle, Former Republican Governor of Delaware

Military Wit and Wisdom Quotes: Quotes About Combat and War from the Military originally appeared on the Resistance Library on Ammo.com