34 Quotes by Smedley Butler

It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country...but the profits...skyrocket...

Why don't those damn oil companies fly their own flags on their personal property-maybe a flag with a gas pump on it.

One hundred and twenty Marines were detailed to officer a force of twenty-six hundred Haitians.

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.

War like any other racket, pays high dividends to the very few. The cost of operations is always transferred to the people who do not profit.

I selected an enormous Marine Corps emblem to be tattooed across my chest. It required several sittings and hurt me like the devil, but the finished product was worth the pain. I blazed triumphantly forth, a Marine from throat to waist. The emblem is still with me. Nothing on earth but skinning will remove it.

My interest is, my one hobby is, maintaining a democracy. If you get these 500,000 soldiers advocating anything smelling of Fascism, I am going to get 500,000 more and lick the hell out of you, and we will have a real war right at home.

Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.

No one told these American soldiers they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with US patents.