Either explode in silence, or perish in silence.

Fierce-browed, I coolly defy a thousand pointing fingers; head bowed, I willingly serve as a children's ox.

To achieve the objective, do not be choosy about methods.

-- The ruthlessly effective architect of modern Japan who built the Meiji state's institutions while his more charismatic peers took the glory

Then we shall fight in the shade.

-- The Spartan king who led 300 warriors in a suicidal last stand at Thermopylae

God and my right.

-- The Lionheart — England's warrior-king who spent his reign on crusade and battlefield rather than in governance

If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the ranks.

-- The 'Lion of the North' who revolutionized European warfare through combined-arms tactics and transformed Sweden into a continental great power during the Thirty Years' War

I die in the way of loyalty and filial duty.

-- The Japanese general whose siege of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War became synonymous with both the terrible cost of modern warfare and the samurai ideal of duty unto death

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

-- The British prime minister whose leadership during World War II embodied national defiance against Nazi Germany