* “I can imagine a no more rewarding career, and any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: ‘I served in the United States Navy’” - John F. Kennedy
* “The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.” – Joseph Conrad
* “Sailor’s have the cleanest bodies and the filthiest minds.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
* Build slow destroyers? One might as well breed slow race horses!” – Winston Churchill
* Without a respectable Navy, Alas America.” – John Paul Jones
* “It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.” – President George Washington
* “A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace.” – President Teddy Roosevelt, 1902
* “For in this modern world, the instruments of warfare are not solely for waging war. Far more importantly, they are the means for controlling peace. Naval officers must therefore understand not only how to fight a war, but how to use the tremendous power which they operate to sustain a world of liberty and justice, without unleashing the powerful instruments of destruction and chaos that they have at their command.” – Admiral Arleigh Burke, CNO, 1961
* “I enlisted when I was a boy. The Navy looked after me like my mother. It fed me, took care of me and gave me wonderful opportunities.” – Tony Curtis
* “I’ve been to a number of places and seen for myself the caliber of people who are in the Navy today – in all the services for that matter. This is an altogether different bunch. These people of today are really bright, young, good people.” – Ernest Borgnine
* “The main American naval forces were shifted to the Pacific region and an American admiral made a strong declaration to the effect that if war were to break out between Japan and the United States, the Japanese navy could be sunk in a matter of weeks.” - Hideki Tojo
* “The Marine Corps is the Navy’s police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin’s.” – President Harry S. Truman
* “There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seamen.” - Thomas B. Macaulay
* “When I lost my rifle, the Army charged me 85 dollars. That is why in the Navy the Captain goes down with the ship.” - Dick Gregory
* “No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned… a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.” –
Samuel Johnson
* “The reason that the American Navy does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the Americans practice chaos on a daily basis.” –
Adm. Karl Doenitz, of the German Kriegsmarine
* “It is the function of the Navy to carry the war to the enemy, so that it will not be fought on U.S. soil.” -
Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz
* “What weighs most heavily in my conversations, in my thinking and my work is planning not just for capability, but really coming to grips with capacity. One ship can only be in one place at one time. We are the smallest Navy that we have been since 1916, but our responsibilities are global and our interests will continue to require a global presence.” – Admiral Gary Roughead, CNO, 2009
* “The wonder is always new that any man can be a sailor.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
* “The art of war is simple enough. Find out where the enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike at him as hard as you can and as often as you can, and keep moving on.” Gen. U.S. Grant
* “I have spread the mantle of my nation over the ocean, and will guard her forever. I am her heritage, and yours. I am the American Sailor.” - Anon.
* “There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting and enslaving than the life at sea.” – Joesph Conrad
* “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the wind in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover!” – Mark Twain
* ” As a nation we were not prepared for WWII. Yes we won the war, but at a terrific cost in lives, human suffering, and material, and at times the margin was narrow. History alone can reveal how many turning points there were, how many times we were near losing, and how our enemies’ mistakes often pulled us through. In the flush of victory, some like to forget unpalatable truths.” - Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold
* “Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance!” – Celtic saying
* ” A good uniform must work its way with the women, sooner or later.” - Charles Dickens
* ” Men aquainted with the battlefield will not be found among the numbers that glibly talk of another war.” – Gen. Dwight Eisenhower