'Tis the soldier's life to have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.
Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.
An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.
Children play soldier. That makes sense. But why do soldiers play children?
Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?
Conscription may have been good for the country, but it damn near killed the army.
Do you know what a soldier is, young man? He's the chap who makes it possible for civilized folk to despise war.
Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure.
Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.
History shows that there are no invincible armies.
How happy is the sailor's life, from coast to coast to roam; in every port he finds a wife, in every land a home.
I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me.
I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that which you call a Gentle-man and is nothing else.
I must have the gentleman to haul and draw with the mariner, and the mariner with the gentleman. I would know him, that would refuse to set his hand to a rope, but I know there is not any such here.
If I should die, think only this of me: that there's some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England.
If our soldiers are not overburdened with money, it is not because they have a distaste for riches; if their lives are not unduly long, it is not because they are disinclined to longevity.
In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things.
In this country it's a good thing to kill an admiral now and then to encourage the others.
Making the world safe for hypocrisy.