Douglas MacArthur Quotes Proverbs, and Aphorisms

• January 26, 1880 – April 5, 1964
• American
• General of the Army, Military Leader, Supreme Commander in the Pacific Theater during World War II

Douglas MacArthur was a prominent American general and military leader best known for his roles in World War II, the Korean War, and the occupation of Japan. As Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the Pacific, he led key campaigns such as the Philippines liberation and accepted Japan’s surrender in 1945. He oversaw the postwar reconstruction of Japan, helping to implement democratic reforms and a new constitution. In the Korean War, his bold Inchon landing turned the tide, but his later push toward China led to a controversial dismissal by President Truman in 1951 for insubordination. MacArthur remains a complex figure, praised for his brilliance and leadership, but also criticized for arrogance and overreach.

1. “The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
2. “Could I have but a line a century hence crediting a contribution to the advance of peace, I would yield every honor which has been accorded by war.”
3. “They died hard, those savage men – like wounded wolves at bay. They were filthy, and they were lousy, and they stunk. And I loved them.”
4. “There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.”
5. “Part of the American dream is to live long and die young. Only those Americans who are willing to die for their country are fit to live.”
6. “Life is a lively process of becoming.”
7. “My first recollection is that of a bugle call.”
8. “I have just returned from visiting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world!”
9. “The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.”
10. “Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.”
11. “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.”
12. “One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda.”
13. “Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.”
14. “In war there is no substitute for victory.”
15. “There is no substitute for victory.”
16. “Never give an order that can’t be obeyed.”
17. “Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.”
18. “I have known war as few men now living know it. It’s very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.”
19. “It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.”
20. “In war, you win or lose, live or die – and the difference is just an eyelash.”
21. “Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
22. “I suppose, in a way, this has become part of my soul. It is a symbol of my life. Whatever I have done that really matters, I’ve done wearing it. When the time comes, it will be in this that I journey forth. What greater honor could come to an American, and a soldier?”
23. “Americans never quit.”
24. “Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.”
25. “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”
26. “A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.”
27. “You are remembered for the rules you break.”
28. “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.”
29. “A better world shall emerge based on faith and understanding.”
30. “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.”
31. “It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.”
32. “I’ve looked that old scoundrel death in the eye many times but this time I think he has me on the ropes.”
33. “We are not retreating – we are advancing in another direction.”
34. “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.”
35. “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.”
36. “In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.”