Arthur Wellesley

"Publish and be damned."

"The whole of the business of war, and indeed almost the whole art of receiving visits, consists in so paying attention that you may know at every moment the exact condition of the opposite master of the house."

"Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."

"Discipline is not mere compliance with orders. It is that quality of conduct which results from a true understanding of their purpose."

"I used to say of him that his presence on the field made the difference of forty thousand men."

"The time is come when I must play my last stake."

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

"A man of sense only trifles with them, as he does with a pretty woman, when he has nothing better to do."

"I have no small talk."

"Obedience is the foundation of all virtue."

"I have always been of the opinion that the great events of the world are not to be accounted for by intrigue."

"Hard pounding this, gentlemen; let's see who will pound longest."

"The best security for civil liberty is to have ample military knowledge in the body of the people."

"One may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb."

"I have always thought that the great high privilege, the great pleasure of a democratic people, is to have hit upon something which one can honestly say has never been done before."

"My rule has always been to do the business of the day in the day."

"I always had a repugnance to the plan of drawing up what one would wish to have said."

"I thank God that I have always tried to do my duty."

"The ability to concentrate and to use time well is everything."

"I am sure that I do not like to be in the Society of some of my Relations."

"Waterloo was a damned neat thing — the nearest thing to a damned near thing you ever saw in your life."

"A man may as well be out of the world as out of the fashion."

"Don't talk to me of figures or calculations, if you have not a very clear and distinct apprehension of the things about which you theorize."

"I desire to live and to act as becomes a public man."

"Everybody to their taste, as the old woman said when she kissed her cow."

"When I contemplate the course and consequences of the French Revolution, I feel less inclined to innovation."

"The principles which I have laid down will always remain the same, but they must be adapted to the circumstances under which they are to be carried out."

"I have always been of opinion that no man's life can be properly estimated until after his death."

"There are very few institutions in the world so badly managed as the British Army."

"Believe nothing you hear, and half of what you see."