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“You know how to win a victory; Hannibal, but not how to use it.”
- Maharbal {Attributed} circa 210 BC

“Cathago delenda est..” {Carthage must be destroyed.}
- Marcus Porcius Cato {Cato the Elder} 234-149 BC

"Alea jacta est" {The die is cast.}
Gaius Julius Caesar, upon crossing the Rubicon and thus starting yet another Roman civil war. 49 BC

“Quintili Vare, legiones redde!” {Quinctilius Varus, give me back my Legions!}
- Augustus Caesar, after 9 AD

"The more foes, the greater glory."
Georg von Frundsberg (1473 - 1528), South German knight and Landsknecht leader.

"Having been born into the house of the warrior, one’s intentions should be to grasp the long and short swords and die."
Katō Kiyomasa

"You can ask me for anything you like, except time."
- Napoleon Bonaparte, 1803

"Follow my arse."
Marshal Joachim Murat (Attributed)

"You write to me that it's impossible; the word is not French."
- Napoleon Bonaparte, 1813

"Tell the men to fire faster and not to give up the ship; fight her till she sinks."
- Last order of Captain James Lawrence, commanding USS Chesapeake 1813.

"The enemy say that Americans are good at a long shot, but cannot stand the cold iron. I call upon you instantly to give a lie to the slander. Charge!" Winfield Scott, 1814

"Two o'clock in the morning courage: I mean unprepared courage."
- Napoleon Bonaparte, 1815

"You are French Foreign Legionnaires in order to die, and France will send you to where you can die."
Plaque posted over French Foreign Legion barracks doorways.

"You will fix bayonets. You will charge your rifles. You will fire on command. You will follow me."
2nd Lt. Maudet, Battle of Camerone, 30 April 1863

'Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes."
- Commander William Prescott at Bunker Hill in the American Revolution

'"If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined"
- Pyrrhus of Epirus

"When Africanus asked who, in Hannibal's opinion, was the greatest general, Hannibal named Alexander, the king of the Macedonians because with a small force he has routed armies innumerable and because he has traversed the most distant regions, even to see which transcended human hopes.

To the next request, as to whom he would rank second, Hannibal selected Pyrrhus, saying that he had been the first to teach the art of castrametation, besides no one had chosen his ground or placed his troops more discriminatingly; he possessed also the art of winning men over to him, so that the Italian people preferred the lordship of a foreign king to that of the Roman people, so long the master in that land.

When he continued, asking whom Hannibal considered third, he named himself without hesitation"
- Hannibal as quoted by Livy.

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance"

John Sedgwick May 1864 (Last words)

"Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"
- Admiral David Farragut, August 1864

"I have not yet begun to fight!"
-- Captain John Paul Jones, September, 1779

“The wooden wall is your ships.”
Themistocles, c 528 BC – c 462 BC

“Si vis pacem, para bellum”
Flavius Vegetius, late 4th Century/5th Century CE

“We have met the enemy and they are ours.”
Oliver Hazard Perry, Battle of Lake Erie, 10 September 1813

“I can’t spare this man–he fights.”
Abraham Lincoln, when pressed to remove U.S. Grant from command, 1862

"Free us from the fury of the Northman, Lord.”
- Prayer in Northumbria during the Viking Age

"better to have an iron admiral leading wooden ships than a wooden admiral leading iron ships"
various, after the Battle of Lissa 1866

“Retreat? Hell, we just got here!”

—Marine Captain Lloyd Williams, answering a messenger from the French Commander as Marines arrive at the Belleau Wood sector in WWI.

I know I know. Not "pre-WW1"

O people, know that you have committed great sins, and that the great ones among you have committed these sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you

Tamerlane

"In strife and conflict I besieged and conquered the city. I felled 3,000 of their fighting men with the sword. I captured many troops alive: I cut off of some their arms and hands; I cut off of others their noses, ears, and extremities. ... A pyramid of heads I erected in front of the city."

....Some Assyrian King......

“Since they do not want to eat, let them drink!”
Publius Claudius Pulcher, Battle of Drepana, 249 BC {Unable to get favorable omens, he threw the sacred chickens into the sea. It was a crushing defeat, and upon returning to Rome, he was tried for treason. He was acquitted, narrowly avoiding the death sentence, but found guilty of impiety, and exiled.}

“Patience is the key to any battle.”

"To know your enemy, first you must become his friend, and once you become his friend, all his defences come down. Then you can choose the most fitting method for his demise"
Tokugawa Ieyasu, 1543-1616, Founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate [1600 to 1868]

"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his desserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all!"
James Graham, 1st Marquess and 5th Earl of Montrose, 1612-1650 {Quote from 1642 or later}

"In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress."
Ethan Allen, Taking the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga, NY on 10 May 1775.

‘C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre; c’est de la folie’ {It’s magnificent, but it’s not war; it’s madness’ }
-General Pierre Bosquet, on seeing the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava, 25 October 1854

"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time"
Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary, evening of 3 August 1914

"Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils."
-General John Stark. July 31, 1809

Actually ended up being used for the New Hampshire state motto, which is "Live free or die".

edit. The message behind this quote, used as a response to decline an invitation to a reunion of "The Battle of Bennington" (an American Revolutionary War battle in which New Hampshire General John Stark led) due to poor health by General Stark, was the quote that got me interested in history as a young child.

While the first part of the quote was taken from a popular motto of The French Revolution, the second part of the quote "Death is not the worst of evils." made me think really hard in my teen years. It was a lot to unpack then (and even now), and motivated many of my life choices since my teenage years.

the spartans, being the original laconic wits*, have some truly great one liners.


two of the most famous made it into the movie 300, but in slightly altered forms:

"dig it out yourselves"
The response King Leonidas gave to the Persians messengers sent to demand "earth and water" (a traditional symbol of submission to a overlord), as he had them pushed into a well (now better known as the "THIS! IS! SPARTA!" scene).

"Come and take them!" Leonidas again, in response to the a Persian demand they surrender thier weapons, just before the battle of Thermopylae. in the orginal greek, "Molon labe", it has an undertone of "from our cold, dead hands, or possibly your chest after i stab you with it".

but, my personal favourite was when Phillip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, sent a letter to the spartans during his conquest of greece, in which he said "if i enter your lands, i shall cast down your city, and take your woman as my own and your sons as slaves!", or something simmilar (the exact threats depends on which version of the story you prefer"). The spartans sent back a single word as an answer:

"IF"


its hard to argue with someone who can drop the mic, several thousand years before the mic was even invented.




*as in, the term "laconic wit" is related to Laconia, the name for the area where the spartan city-state existed)

xerxeskingofking wrote:
the spartans, being the original laconic wits*, have some truly great one liners. <snip>

An amusing irony that a post about the Spartans is made by a poster with the username of Xerxes, King of Kings!

 Ancestral Hamster wrote:

xerxeskingofking wrote:
the spartans, being the original laconic wits*, have some truly great one liners. <snip>

An amusing irony that a post about the Spartans is made by a poster with the username of Xerxes, King of Kings!

Hah! That is truly indeed some great irony.

xerxeskingofking wrote:
the spartans, being the original laconic wits*, have some truly great one liners.


two of the most famous made it into the movie 300, but in slightly altered forms:

"dig it out yourselves"
The response King Leonidas gave to the Persians messengers sent to demand "earth and water" (a traditional symbol of submission to a overlord), as he had them pushed into a well (now better known as the "THIS! IS! SPARTA!" scene).

"Come and take them!" Leonidas again, in response to the a Persian demand they surrender thier weapons, just before the battle of Thermopylae. in the orginal greek, "Molon labe", it has an undertone of "from our cold, dead hands, or possibly your chest after i stab you with it".

but, my personal favourite was when Phillip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, sent a letter to the spartans during his conquest of greece, in which he said "if i enter your lands, i shall cast down your city, and take your woman as my own and your sons as slaves!", or something simmilar (the exact threats depends on which version of the story you prefer"). The spartans sent back a single word as an answer:

"IF"


its hard to argue with someone who can drop the mic, several thousand years before the mic was even invented.




*as in, the term "laconic wit" is related to Laconia, the name for the area where the spartan city-state existed)

Also, related to Spartans during the Persian Wars, I will paraphrase.....

Persian Herald "We will block out the sun with our arrow fire!"

Spartan: "Good, I prefer to fight in the shade."