But between the plan and the operation, there is always an unknown. That unknown spells victory or defeat. ... Some people call it getting the breaks. I call it God. God has His part in everything. That's where prayer comes in.

A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.

I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood.

When a decision has to be made, make it. There is no totally right time for anything.

When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can't run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn't fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag. As for the types of comments I make, sometimes I just, By God, get carried away with my own eloquence.

A civil servant is sometimes like a broken cannon - it won't work and you can't fire it.

Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.