Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington quotes - page 3

Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won: the bravery of my troops hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to win such a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expens of so many gallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune but for the result to the public.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

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

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

When one begins to turn in bed, it is time to get up.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Habit is ten times nature.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

When my journal appears, many statues must come down.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

It is not the business of generals to shoot one another.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

I hate the whole race. There is no believing a word they say, your professional poets, I mean there never existed a more worthless set than Byron and his friends for example.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Next to a lost battle, nothing is so sad as a battle that has been won.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

As Lord Chesterfield said of the generals of his day, 'I only hope that when the enemy reads the list of their names, he trembles as I do.'

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Buonaparte's mind was, in its details, low and ungentlemanlike. I suppose the narrowness of his early prospects and habits stuck to him; what we understand by gentlemanlike feelings he knew nothing at all about.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

I believe that if ever we are to come to blows with the Russians in India we must rely upon our sepoys, as we have in all our wars there with European as well as with native powers. These with our superior knowledge of the art of war in that country and our superior equipment, founded upon our knowledge of the resources of the seat of the war, the character of the natives and other circumstances, will give us advantages which will more than counter balance the supposed inferiority of our troops.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

There is not a Moslem heart in Asia, from Pekin to Constantinople, which will not vibrate, when reflecting upon the fact that the European ladies, and other females attached to the troops at Cabul, were made over to the tender mercies of the Moslem chief, who had with his own hand murdered the representative of the British Government at the Court of the Sovereign of Afghanistan... It is impossible to impress upon you too strongly the notion of the importance of the restoration of our reputation in the East. Our enemies in France, the United States, and wherever found, are now rejoicing in our disasters and degradation. You will teach them that their triumph is premature.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington