Noncommissioned Army Quotes & Sayings

The trust, confidence, and support given to us by our chain of command, and the tenacity of the great noncommissioned officers of the past, have laid the foundation and developed our quality corporals and sergeants. — Julius W. Gates

It was an article of faith with NCOs [noncommissioned officers] that they were better than their officers. And they were usually right. Certainly I had been happy with mine. They had done plenty of good work for me. — Lee Child

Without self-discipline, a noncommissioned officer can never develop or maintain personal integrity. — Silas L. Copeland

When something possesses me, I go ahead and do it. — Ang Lee

It is difficult to be a good noncommissioned officer. If it had been easy, they would have given it to the officer corps. — William A. Connelly

The real truthfulness of all works of imagination, sculpture, painting, and written fiction, is so purely in the imagination, that the artist never seeks to represent positive truth, but the idealized image of a truth — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Some of us, white and black, know how great a price has already been paid to bring into existence a new consciousness, a new people, an unprecedented nation. If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name.

If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own - which it is - and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night. — James Baldwin

The poet is a pretender. / He pretends so completely, / that he even pretends that it is pain / the pain he really feels. — Fernando Pessoa

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool. — Epicurus

We want the Army to be society's model of fair treatment. We want to assure that all soldiers are treated fairly, not because it is necessary but because it is right. Those units that have the fewest incidents are those whose noncommissioned officers really know their men and take a personal interest in their welfare. — Silas L. Copeland

They called Matthew March "autistic" as a child. What no one had known was that he was not closed into a world of his own, he was far, far too open to the real one. — Mercedes Lackey

Aries in his many fits knows no favorites. — Homer

Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is ... and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be ... and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart ... no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn't matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired-but it does to them. — Robert A. Heinlein

To mourn is to wonder at the strangeness that grief is not written all over your face in bruised hieroglyphics. And it's also to feel, quite powerfully, that you're not allowed to descend into the deepest fathom of your grief - that to do so would be taboo somehow. — Meghan O'Rourke

Bernard was duly grateful (it was an enormous comfort to have his friend again) and also duly resentful (it would be pleasure to take some revenge on Helmholtz for his generosity). — Aldous Huxley

One large bundle held their all - bed, coffee-mill, looking-glass, hens - all but the cat; she took to the woods and became a wild cat, and, as I learned afterward, trod in a trap set for woodchucks, and so became a dead cat at last. — Henry David Thoreau

Soldiers expect the noncommissioned officer to be technically proficient, up front, and honest with them. Soldiers must know that NCOs care, that they can approach the NCO for guidance and direction, and that NCOs can make things happen when a difficult situation arises. — Glen E. Morrell