Douglas MacArthur Quotes

"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... In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory always I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country. Today marks my final roll call with you. But I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the Corps, and the Corps, and the Corps. I bid you farewell.

Only those are fit to live who are not afraid of dying.

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. While such an economy may produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment, it rests on an illusionary foundation of complete unreliability and renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war.

I shall raise my voice as loud and as often as I believe it to be in the interest of the American people. I shall dedicate all of my energies to restoring to American life those immutable principles and ideals which your forebears and mine handed down to us in sacred trust. I shall assist in the regaining of that moral base for both public and private life which will restore the people's faith in the integrity of public institutions and the private faith of every man in the integrity of his neighbor. I shall set my course to the end that no man need fear to speak the truth. I could not do less, for the opportunities for service my country has given me and the honors it has conferred upon me have imposed an obligation which is not discharged by the termination of public service. Much that I have seen since my return to my native land after an absence of many years has filled me with immeasurable satisfaction and pride. Our material progress has been little short of phenomenal. It has established an eminence in material strength so far in advance of any other nation or combination of nations that talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense. It is not of any external threat that I concern myself but rather of insidious forces working from within which have already so drastically altered the character of our free institutions — those institutions which formerly we hailed as something beyond question or challenge — those institutions we proudly called the American way of life.

It seems strangely difficult for some to realize that here in Asia is where the Communist conspirators have elected to make their play for global conquest, and that we have joined the issue thus raised on the battlefield; that here we fight Europe’s war with arms while the diplomats there still fight it with words; that if we lose the war to communism in Asia the fall of Europe is inevitable, win it and Europe most probably would avoid war and yet preserve freedom. As you pointed out, we must win. There is no substitute for victory.

I see that the flagpole still stands. Have your troops hoist the colors to its peak, and let no enemy ever haul them down.

I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God, our forces stand again on Philippine soil.

I said, to the people of the Philippines whence I came, I shall return. Tonight, I repeat those words: I shall return!

I came out of Bataan and I shall return!

It was close; but that's the way it is in war. You win or lose, live or die — and the difference is just an eyelash.

Age wrinkles the body................Quitting wrinkles the soul.

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up wrinkles the soul.