Duke of Wellington Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• I attribute my success on the battlefield to always being on the spot to see and do everything for myself

  Duke of Wellington

  Attributes, Spots, Battlefields

  12 Copy quote

• There are no manifestos like cannon and musketry.

  Duke of Wellington

  Cannons, Manifestos

  12 Copy quote

• Troops would never be deficient in courage, if they could only know how deficient in it their enemies were.

  Duke of Wellington

  Courage, Enemy, Troops

  21 Copy quote

• Always make water when you can.

  Duke of Wellington

  Water

  43 Copy quote

• God deliver me from my friends! I'll take care of my enemies myself.

  Duke of Wellington

  Crazy, Mad, Enemy

  8 Copy quote

• The hardest thing of all for a soldier is to retreat.

  Duke of Wellington

  Military, War, Soldier

  53 Copy quote

• The French system of conscription brings together a fair sample of all classes; ours is composed of the scum of the earth - the mere scum of the earth. It is only wonderful that we should be able to make so much out of them afterwards.

  Duke of Wellington

  Scum Of The Earth, Class, Together

  Speaking about soldiers in the British Army, November 04, 1813.

  9 Copy quote

• During the Peninsula War, I heard a Portuguese general address his troops before a battle with the words, "Remember men, you are Portuguese!"

  Duke of Wellington

  War, Men, Battle

  "A Positively Final Appearance: A Journal 1996-98". Book by Alec Guinness, 1999.

  49 Copy quote

• The whole art of war consists in getting at what is on the other side of the hill.

  Duke of Wellington

  Art, War, Sides

  14 Copy quote

• Always get over heavy ground as lightly as you can.

  Duke of Wellington

  Heavy, Get Over

  39 Copy quote

• The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance.

  Duke of Wellington

  Order, Differences, Battle

  1815 Of the Battle of Waterloo. Letter, 8 Aug.

  13 Copy quote

• There is nothing on earth so stupid as a gallant officer.

  Duke of Wellington

  War, Stupid, Earth

  14 Copy quote

• The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.

  Duke of Wellington

  Battle, Eton, Fields

  Attributed in N.Y. Times, 26 Dec. 1886. The earliest trace of this quotation was in Charles de Montalembert, De l'Avenir Politique de l'Angleterre (1856). Montalembert quoted Wellington, supposedly visiting his old school, in French: "C'est ici qu'a ete gagnee la bataille de Waterloo." In fact,Wellington was a notably unenthusiastic alumnus of Eton, and Elizabeth Longford, in Wellington: The Years of the Sword (1969), concludes that "probably he never said or thought anything of the kind." See O

  14 Copy quote

• I have seen their backs before.

  Duke of Wellington

  Peace, War

  Attributed to Wellington as a statement to King Louis XVIII at a ball in the spring of 1814,

  5 Copy quote

• You must build your House of Parliament on the river: so... that the populace cannot exact their demands by sitting down round you.

  Duke of Wellington

  Rivers, House, Sitting Down

  In Sir William Fraser 'Words on Wellington' (1889) p. 163

  10 Copy quote

• The only thing that they can be relied on to do is to gallop too far and too fast.

  Duke of Wellington

  War

  14 Copy quote

• A great country cannot wage a little war.

  Duke of Wellington

  Country, War, Littles

  Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (2012). “Maxims and Opinions of Field-Marshal His Grace the Duke of Wellington, Selected From His Writings and Speeches During a Public Life of More Than Half a Century”, p.377, tredition

  14 Copy quote

• When my journal appears, many statues must come down.

  Duke of Wellington

  Legacy, Journal, Statues

  36 Copy quote

• Rashness is oftener the resort of cowardice than of courage.

  Duke of Wellington

  Cowardice, Resorts, Rashness

  10 Copy quote

• It is not the business of generals to shoot one another.

  Duke of Wellington

  Business, Imperfection

  7 Copy quote

• Habit is ten times nature.

  Duke of Wellington

  Habit, Ten

  8 Copy quote

• Call on a business man only at business times, and on business; transact your business, and go about your business, in order to give him time to finish his business.

  Duke of Wellington

  Business, Men, Order

  13 Copy quote

• Napoleon has humbugged me, by God; he has gained twenty-four hours' march on me.

  Duke of Wellington

  Twenties, Four, March

  Said at the Duchess of Richmond's ball on June 15, 1815. "Camps, Quarters and Casual Places" by Archibald Forbes, www.gutenberg.org. 1896.

  11 Copy quote

• As a member of the Protestant British squirearchy ruling Ireland, he was touchy about his Irish origins. When in later life an enthusiastic Gael commended him as a famous Irishman, he replied "A man can be born in a stable, and yet not be an animal.

  Duke of Wellington

  Animal, Men, Born

  7 Copy quote

• I used to say of him that his presence on the field made the difference of forty thousand men.

  Duke of Wellington

  War, Men, Differences

  Quoted in Philip Henry Stanhope, Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington (1888) (entry for 2 Nov. 1831)

  10 Copy quote

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