"I approve of all you say, gentlemen. The fleet's needs are many and urgent. One, however, must take precedence. This item the men need before all, and we must get it for them without fail and without deferral. We must get the men a victory."

Steven Pressfield Literature See all quotes by Steven Pressfield →

React to this quote

More by Steven Pressfield

“I had become someone they could look to for leadership and direction, who would shield from meddling from above, and would ask no act of them that he wasn't prepared to perform himself. I provided for my men a framework within which they were freed to use their own qualities of courage, resourcefulness and tenacity.”

“You English are loath to embrace the virtues of the warrior. Such an act embarrasses you. You prefer to see yourselves as civilians summoned reluctantly to arms, as-what is the word?-'amatuers.' But you are warriors, you English. You are, Chapman. Trust me, who has faced you in the field.”

“I believe him, Dienekes. He's so fucking stupid, this is just the way he would skrew it up.”

“There is something I must tell you. When Leonidas selected you for the Three Hundred, I went to him in private and argued strenuously against your inclusion. I thought you would not fight. I was wrong.”

“The Soldier is a farmer. He knows how to shape the earth. He is a carpenter; he erects ramparts and palisades. A miner, he digs trenches and tunnels; a mason, he chisels a road from a sheer face of stone. The Soldier is a physician who performs surgery without anesthetic, a priest who inters the dead without psalm. He is a philosopher who plumbs the mysteries of existence, a linguist who pronounces "pussy" in a dozen tongues. He is an architect and a demolition man, a fire brigadier and an incendiary. He is a beast who dwells in the dirt, a worm, owning a mouth and an anus and aught but appetite in between.”

“It is a terrible thing to be a king, especially a great one, for one must serve ideals of the spirit at the price of lovers of flesh and blood. Who profits from a king's fidelity save generations a thousand years unborn, and which of his works will they recall at that remove, or care?”

Resonant Thoughts

"and I would like to have a relationship with Europe where we can stay in the European Union and be confident we can be successful in the global race"

— Jeremy Hunt

Politics1966

#success

"I find, by your Excellency's letter to General Sullivan, that you expect the enemy are going to evacuate New York, and that it is probable they are coming eastward. I can hardly think they mean to mak…"

— Nathanael Greene

Military1742–1786

#writing

"The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from."

— Gene Fowler

Journalism1890–1960

#success

"The principles of logic and mathematics are true simply because we never allow them to be anything else. And the reason for this is that we cannot abandon them without contradicting ourselves, without…"

— Alfred Jules Ayer

Philosophy1910–1989

#truth