Heroes, whatever high ideas we may have of them, are mortal and not divine. We are all as God made us and many of us much worse.

Everybody has flaws, and every country has flaws. But you can still love something even though you know it's been so wrong before, and sometimes is now, and probably will be again.

No author ever drew a character consistent to human nature, but he was forced to ascribe to it many inconsistencies.

How sad it is that these great gentlemen should believe what anyone tells them and do not choose to judge for themselves! But it is always so.

In marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being.

It's always more interesting to take on someone that's going to have hidden sides or a fatal flaw, because there's going to be more to play with - more conflict, internally or in and around them - but...

In the military, you learn the essence of people. You see so many examples of self-sacrifice and moral courage. In the rest of life, you don't get that many opportunities to be sure of your friends.

Sooner or later, man has always had to decide whether he worships his own power or the power of God.

Man is the most intelligent of the animals - and the most silly.

Death calls ye to the crowd of common men.

Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.

There are people who have an appetite for grief; pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain. They have mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on poisoned bread, natures so doomed that no...

Every man passes his life in the search after friendship.

I love children, especially when they cry, for then someone takes them away.

Something in me died at Peleliu. Perhaps it was the childish innocence that accepted as faith the claim that Man is basically good. Possibly I lost faith that politicians in high places, who do not...

Our greatest threats never come from strangers but those closer to us.

Selling a new lie is easy, but not so with un-teaching an old truth.

If you're not annoying somebody, you're not alive.

You never think it's going to happen to you, do you?

What is it about guys named Adam?

People don't get gentler as they get older but rather, harder.

I truly believe that people do the best they can.

Everything is a tool - a boot, a sled, a dog - and a hand, an arm, even a man! If it breaks down you throw it away and you march on! It's brutal, yes! And it's ugly. But anything else is sentiment and...

What's a man worth without love? $.89 worth of chemicals. Hawkeye Pierce

I retreat to my room and lock the door. Lying on my bed, my brain cyclones with thoughts of men and boys and boys and men. All making the wrong choices.

Improvement is always on the schedule for tomorrow. Change is always taking place some time in the future. It's human nature.

Human nature is universally imbued with a desire for liberty, and a hatred for servitude.

Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the...

There are many new sinners today, but there aren't any new sins, just the old ones clothed in different rags.