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Wise Words from the DUKE

Father’s Advice

“I’ve always followed my father’s advice: he told me, first to always keep my word and, second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be goddamn sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble.”

God

“I’ve always had deep faith that there is a Supreme Being, there has to be. To me that’s just a normal thing to have that kind of faith. The fact that He’s let me stick around a little longer, or She’s let me stick around a little longer, certainly goes great with me—and I want to hang around as long as I’m healthy and not in anybody’s way.”

On The Flag

“We’ve made mistakes along the way, but that’s no reason to start tearing up the best flag God ever gave to any country.”

America

“Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave? Sure I love my country with all her faults. I’m not ashamed of that, never have been, never will be. I was proud when President Nixon ordered the mining of Haiphong Harbor, which we should have done long ago, because I think we’re helping a brave little country defend herself against Communist invasion. That’s what I tried to show in The Green Berets and I took plenty of abuse from the critics.”

On His Political Philosophy

“I have found a certain type calls himself a Liberal...Now I always thought I was a Liberal. I came up terribly surprised one time when I found out that I was a Right-Wing Conservative Extremist, when I listened to everybody’s point of view that I ever met, and then decided how I should feel. But this so-called new Liberal group, Jesus, they never listen to your point of view...” “If everything isn’t black and white, I say why the hell not.”

On Giving UP

“No you’re not. We can’t turn back! We’re blazing a trail that started in England. Not even the storms of the sea could turn back those first settlers - and they carried it on further, they blazed it on through the wilderness of Kentucky. Famine, hunger, not even massacres could stop them. Now we’ve picked up the trail again and nothing can stop us, not even the snows of winter nor the peaks of the highest mountain. We’re building a nation, but we’ve got to suffer. No great trail was ever blazed without hardship. And you’ve got to fight. That’s life! And when you stop fightin’, that’s death! What are you going to do, lay down and die? Not in a thousand years! You’re going on with me!”

On Treatment

“I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people and I require the same from them.

On Self Sufficiency

“Have you ever heard of some fellows who first came over to this country? You know what they found? They found a howling wilderness, with summers too hot and winters freezing, and they also found some unpleasant little characters who painted their faces. Do you think these pioneers filled out form number X6277 and sent in a report saying the Indians were a little unreasonable? Did they have insurance for their old age, for their crops, for their homes? They did not! They looked at the land, and the forest, and the rivers. They looked at their wives, their kids and their houses, and then they looked up at the sky and they said thanks God, we’ll take it from here.”

What he would have said leaving troops to IRAQ

“Speaking of politics, where we’re going, there are only two parties, the Quick and the Dead.”