Norman Schwarzkopf Quotes

A very great man once said you should love your enemies and that's not a bad piece of advice. We can love them but, by God, that doesn't mean we're not going to fight them.

When placed in command, take charge.

As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he's a great military man, I want you to know that.

I am living proof that if you catch prostate cancer early, it can be reduced to a temporary inconvenience, and you can go back to a normal life.

Particularly when you're dealing with very high ranking people, you know, you have to get their attention, they are used to, by their rank, of having their own way and doing their own thing and when it's necessary to all work together on something, sometimes you have to hit the mule between the eyes of the two by four to get its attention.

With a chemical alarm, you're going to build one that is oversensitive because you would rather the alarm go off and give you a false alarm than to err on the other side

I prided myself on being unflappable even in the most chaotic of circumstances.

Ninety-nine percent of leadership failures are failures of character.

How do you fight someone who doesn't care if they get killed? You accommodate them.

Well, unfortunately, I have always regretted the fact that I have a temper, but I also have, you know, have great love and respect for all of the people that have worked for me. I think like everything else, this is one of those things that has been blown out of proportion.

I don't consider myself dovish and I certainly don't consider myself hawkish. Maybe I would describe myself as owlishthat is wise enough to understand that you want to do everything possible to avoid war.

But I would defy anyone to go back over the years and tell me anyone whose career I've ruined, anyone whom I've driven out of the service, anyone I've fired from a job.

I can't say enough about the two Marine divisions. If I use words like 'brilliant,' it would really be an under description of the absolutely superb job that they did in breaching the so-called 'impenetrable barrier.' It was a classic- absolutely classic- military breaching of a very very tough minefield, barbed wire, fire trenches-type barrier.

I have seen competent leaders who stood in front of a platoon and all they saw was a platoon. But great leaders stand in front of a platoon and see it as 44 individuals, each of whom has aspirations, each of who wants to live, each of whom wants to do good.

You learn far more from negative leadership than from positive leadership. Because you learn how not to do it. And, therefore, you learn how to do it.

Success is sweet, but the secret is sweat.

Fear will keep you alive in a war. Fear will keep you alive in business. There's nothing wrong with fear.

If Saddam were to be replaced tomorrow he would probably be replaced with someone who's just as bad or worse than he is.

I hate war. Absolutely, I hate war.

I do hunt, and I do fish, and I don't apologize to anybody for hunting and fishing.

An awful lot has been written about my temper.

If it had been our intention to take Iraq, if it had been our intention to destroy the country, if it had been our intention to overrun the country, we could have done it unopposed.

It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.

A professional soldier understands that war means killing people, war means maiming people, war means families left without fathers and mothers.

I'd like to think I'm a caring human being.

Any soldier worth his salt should be antiwar. And still there are things worth fighting for.

Had we taken all of Iraq, we would have been like a dinosaur in the tar pit - we would still be there, and we, not the United Nations, would be bearing the costs of that occupation.

What is postwar Iraq going to look like, with the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites? That's a huge question, to my mind.

Leadership consists of character and strategy. If you can't have both, opt for character.

You can't help but... with 20/20 hindsight, go back and say, 'Look, had we done something different, we probably wouldn't be facing what we are facing today.'

It is God's job to forgive Osama Bin Laden. It is our job to arrange a face to face meeting.

You can't help someone get up a hill without getting closer to the top yourself.

I'm not a politician. I'd make a lousy politician.

To be an effective leader, you have to have a manipulative streak - you have to figure out the people working for you and give each tasks that will take advantage of his strength.

More than 200 ships from 13 nations conducted over 10,000 flawless intercepts, which formed a steel wall around the waters leading to Iraq. And these operations continue today. Thanks to these superb efferts not one cargo hold, not one crate, not even one pallet of seaborne contraband even touched Saddam Hussein's shores. The result: Iraq lost 90% of its imports, 100% of its exports, and had its gross national product cut in half.

I like to say I'm not a hero. I was lucky enough to lead a very successful war.

Judge your enemy based upon capabilities, not intent, you have to look at the enemy and really almost make a worst case call every time.

If we invade Iraq and the regime is very close to falling, I'm very, very concerned that the Iraqis will, in fact, use weapons of mass destruction.

From the time I was twelve years old until I retired last year at the age of fifty-seven, the Army was my life. I loved commanding soldiers and being around people who had made a serious commitment to serve their country.

War is a profane thing.

It's the sense of duty that keeps you going sometimes when things get very, very rough. Somebody's got to do it. And if you don't, who will?

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.

The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.

I get angry at a principle, not a person.

I may have made my reputation as a general in the Army and I'm very proud of that. But I've always felt that I was more than one-dimensional.

Good generalship is a realization that... you've got to try and figure out how to accomplish your mission with a minimum loss of human life.

Going to war without France is like going hunting without an accordion.

Had the United States and the United Kingdom gone on alone to capture Baghdad, under the provisions of the Geneva and Hague conventions we would have been considered occupying powers and therefore would have been responsible for all the costs of maintaining or restoring government, education and other services for the people of Iraq.