- All Quotes
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In this age, I don't care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are: if you cannot create harmony - even vicious harmony - on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete.
James Mattis -
PowerPoint makes us stupid.
James Mattis
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You stay teachable most by reading books. By reading what other people went through.
James Mattis -
Iran is not a nation-state; it's a revolutionary cause devoted to mayhem.
James Mattis -
For a sitting U.S. president to see our allies as freeloaders is nuts.
James Mattis -
Most people know nobody in the military.
James Mattis -
Sometimes there are no good guys. There are no bad guys. It seems like everybody is in the middle.
James Mattis -
If you can't eat it, shoot it, or wear it, don't bring it.
James Mattis
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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!
James Mattis -
In a country with millions of people and cars going everywhere, the enemy is going to get a car bomb out there once in awhile.
James Mattis -
Notifying the enemy in advance of our withdrawal dates or reassuring the enemy that we will not use certain capabilities like our ground forces should be avoided.
James Mattis -
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.
James Mattis -
It's very hard to live with yourself if you don't stick with your moral code.
James Mattis -
The economy's always been the engine for our national security.
James Mattis
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Iran is not an enemy of ISIS; they have a lot to gain from the turmoil that ISIS creates.
James Mattis -
There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.
James Mattis -
As commanders and staff officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach anything if we don't know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs?
James Mattis -
Fight with a happy heart.
James Mattis -
There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.
James Mattis -
I would just say there is one misperception of our veterans, and that is they are somehow damaged goods. I don't buy it.
James Mattis
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We should not fight wars without a clearly defined end state... when you go to war, it can't be a half-step.
James Mattis -
There is one way to have a short but exciting conversation with me, and that is to move too slow.
James Mattis -
Read about history, and you become aware that nothing starts with us.
James Mattis