There is only one 'retirement plan' for terrorists.
Jim MattisRead
I can't tell you the number of times I looked down at what was going on on the ground, or I was engaged in a fight somewhere, and I knew within a couple of minutes how I was going to screw up the enemy. And I knew it because I'd done so much reading.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Knowledge and preparation are crucial for success in challenging situations.
In this quote, Jim Mattis emphasizes the importance of knowledge and experience in achieving success during conflicts or challenges. He highlights that rigorous reading and preparation have equipped him with the foresight to anticipate outcomes and devise effective strategies, illustrating how intellectual engagement can profoundly impact practical scenarios.
Themes
KnowledgePreparationReadingStrategyExperience
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about the importance of education, one might invoke this quote to emphasize the value of reading.
More from Jim Mattis
All quotes →There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.
Jim MattisRead
Now from a distance, I look back on what the Corps taught me: to think like men of action, and to act like men of thought!
Jim MattisRead
I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn't waste their lives because I didn't have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.
Jim MattisRead
For whatever trauma came with service in tough circumstances, we should take what we learned - take our post-traumatic growth - and, like past generations coming home, bring our sharpened strengths to bear, bring our attitude of gratitude to bear.
Jim MattisRead
Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.
Jim MattisRead
Similar quotes
Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
Henry David ThoreauRead
You’ve gotta keep control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.
Warren BuffettRead
The ocean can be yours; why should you stop_x000D_ Beguiled by dreams of evanescent dew?_x000D_ The secrets of the sun are yours, but you_x000D_ Content yourself with motes trapped in beams.
Farid Al-Din AttarRead
One should never be ashamed to cry. Tears are rain on the dust of earth.
Charles DickensRead
Do not look at the faults of what others have done or not done; observe what you yourself have done or not done.
Gautama BuddhaRead
To believe and to understand are not diverse things, but the same things in different periods of growth.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead