Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington Quotes

My rule always was to do the business of the day in the day.

I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life.

[I don't] care a twopenny damn what [becomes] of the ashes of Napoleon Bonaparte.

I have no small talk and Peel has no manners.

Circumstances over which I have no control.

Buonaparte's whole life, civil, political, and military, was a fraud. There was not a transaction, great or small, in which lying and fraud were not introduced.

It has been a damned serious business... Blucher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing — the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. … By God! I don't think it would have been done if I had not been there.

If you believe that you will believe anything.

I believe I forgot to tell you I was made a Duke.

Who will attack first tomorrow? I or Bonaparte?
-Bonaparte.
-Well, Bonaparte has not given me any idea of his projects, and as my plans will depend on his, how can you expect to tell me what mine are?

Depend upon it, Sir, nothing will come of them!

The only thing I am afraid of is fear.

My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won: the bravery of my troops hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to win such a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expense of so many gallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune but for the result to the public.

I don't know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but by God, they terrify me.

Pour la canaille: Faut la mitraille.