Marines Corps Quotes & Sayings

For over 221 years our Corps has done two things for this great Nation. We make Marines, and we win battles. — Charles C. Krulak

If I charge, follow me. If I retreat, kill me. If I die, revenge me. — U.S. Marine Corps

Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum. — Gregory Boyington

For over two weeks, the defenders of Wake Island held off a vastly superior force of Japanese ships and troops, inspiring the whole nation with their plucky spirit and sacrifice. Unfortunately, Navy leaders at Pearl Harbor, struggling to protect what was left of the shattered Pacific Fleet, canceled a relief mission, allowing the island and its defenders to fall without support. Wake damaged the long-standing trust between the Corps and the Navy, a memory that still rankles Marines and shames sailors. — Tom Clancy

During Basic, sometimes you're so tired you can't even get up to piss. You're pushed beyond whatever limits you had set for yourself. You realize that your body can do things that you never imagined. But there are times when you don't think you can go on, and that's when your brother is there to lift you up and push you forward. He yells encouragement when the drill sergeant's yelling obscenities. You know that if you're ever caught by the enemy, your brothers will never stop looking for you. If you're hurt they'll help heal you. The Corps is a unit of many, not one, but dozens, thousands even, who have your back. You can smite one Marine, but a thousand will rose up to avenge him. — Jen Frederick

As a civilian, I know nothing about combat, the Marine Corps experience or modern man's struggle adjusting to peace after war. I only know what's been shared with me; confidences I would never betray, nor use as details in a novel. — Tiffany Madison

Today, the world looks to America for leadership. And America looks to its Corps of Marines. — Ronald Reagan

The Marines fought almost solely on esprit de corps, I was certain. It was inconceivable to most Marines that they should let another Marine down, or that they could be responsible for dimming the bright reputation of their Corps. The Marines simply assumed that they were the world's best fighting men. — Robert Sherrod

I went straight from the Marine Corps to the MFA. The way that you would express things among Marines is somewhat different than the way you're supposed to express things in a creative-writing workshop. — Phil Klay

Marines die, that's what we're here for. But the Marine Corps lives forever. And that means YOU live forever. — Phil Hartman

We ended up our talk by my asking Dennis his feelings now about the Marines. Any regrets for all those wounds? Or about having been sent to and having to fight an unpopular war?
"No. The Marine Corps meant a tremendous amount to me. And even today I gain momentum from it. The Corps is one of the prime reasons Marines are so successful in whatever we do - because we refuse to quit. — James Brady

The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps! — Eleanor Roosevelt

The Marine Corps taught me that I could achieve my goals. In short, the Marines made me believe in myself. — Gregory Alan Williams

Everyday US Marines make possible the impossible and then go about their business like it's just the way things are supposed to be. — Mark W. Boyer

Every time the drill instructor screamed at me and I stood proudly; every time I thought I'd fall behind during a run and kept up; every time I learned to do something I thought impossible, like climb the rope, I came a little closer to believing in myself. Psychologists call it "learned helplessness" when a person believes, as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life. From Middletown's world of small expectations to the constant chaos of our home, life had taught me that I had no control. Mamaw and Papaw had saved me from succumbing entirely to that notion, and the Marine Corps broke new ground. If I had learned helplessness at home, the Marines were teaching learned willfulness. The — J.D. Vance

Our young Marines of today are courageous, willing to make sacrifices, and are marvelous team players. I am confident our Corps, and indeed our Nation, will be in great shape for a long time to come as these people continue to grow and assume greater positions of responsibility. — James T. Conway

But the Air Force was sort of a bastard child of the Army, much like the Marines with the Navy. Everything had to be done over by the Army after it had already been done by the Air Corps, a mess. — Stuart Symington

You see, in the Marine Corps, they teach you that if you're going to carry or use something, you need to do so responsibly. So, if you're going to deploy tear gas, you have to spend some time in a gas chamber finding out just how bad it sucks. Same thing with tasers, and hell, if it didn't cost so much to train new Marines, they'd probably test rifles out on you, as well. My beloved Corps can be a bit thick headed about things like that. — Stan R. Mitchell

Judging by the hard lines of his face and the flat look in his eyes, he'd left the Marines, but the Corps hadn't quite left him. — Ilona Andrews

The Marine Corps is your family too. You may not have a mother here, but you have a shit pile of fathers, uncles, and brothers. — Bud Rudesill

Americans often did not realize that their Marine Corps was a force without counterpart in the world. European navies used Marines for limited duties on shipboard or in naval bases, but neither the numbers nor the training were provided for large-scale offensive operations. — Lynn Montross

The Marines have landed and the situation is well in hand. — Richard Harding Davis

The essence of the Marine Corps experience, I decided, was pain. — Philip Caputo

the best and worst critics I had was in the Marine Corps, If you can share poetry to a bunch of opinionated Marines, you can share with anyone — Vincent Breit

The marine corps teaches you how to be miserable. This is invaluable for an artist. Marines love to be miserable. Marines derive a perverse satisfaction in having colder chow, crappier equipment, and higher casualty rates than any outfit of dogfaces, swabjockies, or flyboys, all of whom they despise. Why? Because those candyasses don't know how to be miserable.
The artist committing himself to his calling has to be miserable. The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not, he will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation. The artist must be like that marine: he has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier, or swabbie, or desk jockey, because this is war, baby, and war is hell. — Steven Pressfield

The Japanese fought to win - it was a savage, brutal, inhumane, exhausting and dirty business. Our commanders knew that if we were to win and survive, we must be trained realistically for it whether we liked it or not. In the post-war years, the U.S. Marine Corps came in for a great deal of undeserved criticism in my opinion, from well-meaning persons who did not comprehend the magnitude of stress and horror that combat can be. The technology that developed the rifle barrel, the machine gun and high explosive shells has turned war into prolonged, subhuman slaughter. Men must be trained realistically if they are to survive it without breaking, mentally and physically. — Eugene B. Sledge

My only answer as to why the Marines get the toughest jobs is because the average Leatherneck is a much better fighter. He has far more guts, courage, and better officers... These boys out here have a pride in the Marine Corps and will fight to the end no matter what the cost."~ 2nd Lt. Richard C. Kennard, — Raphael A. Hughes

Tell that to the Marines! — Franklin D. Roosevelt

In the simple moral maxim the Marine Corps teaches
- do the right thing, for the right reason
- no exception exists that says: unless there's criticism or risk. Damn the consequences. — Josh Rushing

I entirely approve the measures proposed by you in relation to the Marines who are lately captives in Tripoli. Therefore execute them. — Robert Smith

Rather than inserting more Marines and engineers to harden and defend the American Embassy - thus sending an unequivocal message that such an assault against American sovereign territory in the heart of Tehran would never be tolerated again - the bureaucrats back at the White House and State Department had panicked. They'd reduced the embassy's staff from nearly a thousand to barely sixty. The Pentagon had shown a similar lack of resolve. The number of U.S. military forces in-country had been drawn down from about ten thousand active-duty troops to almost none. The only reason Charlie had been sent in - especially as green as he was - was because he happened to be one of the few men in the entire U.S. diplomatic corps who was actually fluent in Farsi. None of the three CIA guys on site even spoke the language. — Joel C. Rosenberg

If the Marines are abolished half the efficiency of the Navy will be destroyed. They are as necessary to the well being of a ship as the officers. Instead of decreasing the Corps, I would rather hope to see a large increase, for we feel the want of Marines very much. — David Dixon Porter

From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, We will fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea. First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean, We are proud to claim the title of United States Marines. - Marine Corps Hymn — Tom Clancy

A Marine likes a good fight and respects a good fighter. You've got yourself one fine Marine for an escort and the whole Marine Corps behind you. — Bud Rudesill

I should deem a man-of-war incomplete without a body of Marines ... imbued with that esprit that has so long characterized the "Old Corps." — Joshua R. Sands