Oliver P. Smith quotes

Oliver P. Smith quotes

last updated: November 28, 2023

“I'm going to fight my way out, I'm going to take all my equipment and all my wounded and as many dead as I can. If we can't get out this way, this Division will never fight as a unit again.”
-- Oliver P. Smith

#Marine Quotes #Fighting Quotes #Division Quotes
“Retreat, hell! We're not retreating, we're just advancing in a different direction.”
-- Oliver P. Smith

#Military Quotes #Retreat Quotes #Different Quotes

“My skin prickled and I looked back at the ocean. None of us ask for the things we inherit; they are thrust upon us, willy-nilly. Like The Marine, I suddenly understood. Mom and I weren't trespassing. This house was ours. This view was ours. And that seemed as absurd and unreal as the stories Sailor Hat had spun for me on the ferry.”
“Every time a boy falls off a tricycle, every time a black cat has gray kittens, every time someone stubs a toe, every time there's a murder or a fire or the marines land in Nicaragua, the police and the newspapers holler 'get Capone.'”
“Whether it's in an inner-city school or a rural community, I want those students to have a chance to take A.P. biology and A.P. physics and marine biology.”
“I came to my first Colts training camp in July of 1950, and it was murder, absolute murder. We had a coach named Clem Crow who must have been nuts. You got to remember that I'd been a Marine, had gone through basic training and spent 26 months in the Pacific during WWII, but the Marine drill instructors had nothing on Clem.”
“Combat is my profession and fighting was a great way to maintain a combat mindset while preparing to lead Marines in war.”
“You want to know who's now running the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy and the Marines and calling the shots where it counts? Fundamentalist Muslims and homosexual activists.”
“For great men, religion is a way of making friends; small people make religion a fighting tool.”

Source : A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (2003). “Ignited Minds: Unleashing the Power Within India”, p.108, Penguin Books India
“At the same time the Muslims are commanded to exercise self-restraint as much as possible. Force is a dangerous weapon. It may have to be used for self-defense or self-preservation, but we must always remember that self-restraint is pleasing in the eyes of Allah. Even when we are fighting, it should be for a principle not out of passion.”
“In this decisive hour of our national history, union means life and division means death.”
“Neither love nor ambition, as it has often been shown, can brook a division of its empire in the heart.”

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