General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American five-star general and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. This Douglas MacArthur quotes on leadership will motivate you.
Best Douglas MacArthur Quotes
- “The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair; these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whatever your years, there is in every being’s heart the love of wonder, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy and the game of life.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
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“Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense. Our threat is from the insidious forces working from within which have already so drastically altered the character of our free institutions – those institutions we proudly called the American way of life.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
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“Even when opportunity knocks, a man still has to get up off his seat and open the door.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Youth is not entirely a time of life; it is a state of mind. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubts; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “By profession, I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder – infinitely prouder – to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son when I am gone, will remember me not from the battlefield but in the home repeating with him our simple daily prayer, Our Father Who Art in Heaven.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “For those to whom much is given, much is required. It is not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up. There is no substitute for victory.” ~ Douglas MacArthur Quotes
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“No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Give me ten thousand Filipino soldiers and I will conquer the world.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Preparedness is the key to success and victory.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Optimism is denial, so face the facts and move on” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “The enemy is in front of us, the enemy is behind us, the enemy is to the right and to the left of us. They can’t get away this time!” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
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“Worry, doubt, fear, and despair are the enemies which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “There are some who, for varying reasons, would appease Red China. They are blind to history’s clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance where this end has justified that means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace. Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “We are not retreating – we are advancing in another direction.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
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“There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Competitive sports keep alive in us a spirit and vitality. Sports teach the strong to know when they are weak and the brave to face themselves when they are afraid; to be proud and unbowed in defeat, and yet humble and gentle in victory; to master ourselves before we attempt to master others; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; and to give the predominance of courage over timidity.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Duty, Honor, Country” – those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
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“Life is a lively process of becoming.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart, there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage, so long are you young. When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and then only, are you grown old. And then, indeed as the ballad says, you just fade away” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Are we going to continue to yield personal liberties and community autonomy to the steady inexplicable centralization all political power or restore the Republic to Constitutional direction, regain our personal liberties and reassume the individual state’s primary responsibility and authority in the conduct of local affairs? Are we going to permit a continuing decline in public and private morality or re-establish high ethical standards as the means of regaining a diminishing faith in the integrity of our public and private institutions?” ~ Douglas MacArthur
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“You are remembered for the rules you break.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Beware not the enemy from ‘without’ but the enemy from ‘within’.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “I had learned one of the bitter lessons of life: never try to regain the past, the fire will have become ashes.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes… But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
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“Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Believe me, sir, never a night goes by, be I ever so tired, but I read the Word of God before I go to bed.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “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 Quotes
- “A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “Years wrinkle the skin. Giving up wrinkles the soul.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “No plan ever survives its first encounter with the enemy.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
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“Never give an order that can’t be obeyed.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training – sacrifice.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of government power.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “It is my earnest hope, and indeed the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past…” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “We have had our last chance. The problem now is basically theological and involves spirituality and improvement of human character. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.” ~ Douglas MacArthur Quotes
- “The nations of the world will have to unite for the next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of Earth must someday make a common front against attack by people from other planets.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
- “The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It’s the age-old struggle: the roar of the crowd on the one side, and the voice of your conscience on the other.” ~ Douglas MacArthur
