James Mattis Quotes
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The Corps is in good hands, and it's been a privilege to serve with the Leathernecks. Now it's time to go.
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I have never thought it necessary to patronize the American people.
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Sometimes there are no good guys. There are no bad guys. It seems like everybody is in the middle.
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Now from a distance, I look back on what the Corps taught me: to think like men of action, and to act like men of thought!
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Engage your brain before you engage your weapon.
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If you can't eat it, shoot it, or wear it, don't bring it.
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There is no God-given right to victory on the battlefield. You win that through the skill and the devotion, the valor and the ferocity of your troops.
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There's an urgent need to stop reacting to each immediate vexing issue in isolation. Such response often creates unanticipated second-order effects and even more problems for us.
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There is nothing better than getting shot at and missed. It's really great.
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While victimhood in America is exalted, I don't think our veterans should join those ranks.
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You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway.
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Iran is not an enemy of ISIS; they have a lot to gain from the turmoil that ISIS creates.
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For a sitting U.S. president to see our allies as freeloaders is nuts.
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You must reward the kind of behavior that you want.
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I don't think the U.S. military is conservative. It's pragmatic.
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Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed... It doesn't give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.
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We all recognize that the Mid-east is dissolving into crises, and we know terrorism did not start with 9-11.
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To Marines, love of liberty is not an empty phrase... Rather, it's displayed by blood, sweat, and tears for the fallen.
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PowerPoint makes us stupid.
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If you read enough biography and history, you learn how people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar situations or patterns in the past. It doesn't give you a template of answers, but it does help you refine the questions you have to ask yourself.
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The Army was always big on Clausewitz, the Prussian; the Navy on Alfred Thayer Mahan, the American; and the Air Force on Giulio Douhet, the Italian. But the Marine Corps has always been more Eastern-oriented. I am much more comfortable with Sun-tzu and his approach to warfare.
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Treachery has existed as long as there's been warfare, and there's always been a few people that you couldn't trust.
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There are many people who do not know if the U.S. Army has 60,000 men or 6 million. They do not have a clue about that.
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I like the enemy knowing there are a few guys like me around.