Civilian Quotes

See also Core English Vocabulary (C) Quotes

A total of 1,580 people, the civilian population, suffered as a result of the bloody wave of terrorist acts that swept over Moscow and other towns and villages of our country.

- Boris Yeltsin

When cutting staff at the Pentagon, don`t eliminate the thin layer that assures civilian control.

- Donald Rumsfeld

The Secretary of Defense is not a super General or Admiral. His task is to exercise civilian control over the Department for the Commander-in-Chief and the country.

- Donald Rumsfeld

I spent five years in England, I went over there with my mother in the show South Pacific and I just love it. I go back there three or four times a year. I joined the American airforce because the Korean war was going on at one time and I got my call up papers and I was supposed to report back to the United States and get my ass shot off in Korea which I didn`t think was a smart idea and not only that I couldn`t understand what the war was all about, I guess a lot of people could at that time but I still can`t even more than I can the Vietnam war, so anyhow I enlisted in the American airforce and I was stationed in London for four years which was pretty good because I never gave up my civilian apartment in St Johns Wood. I got married, met a Swedish girl there, we`ve been married 46 years now.

- Larry Hagman

I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him.

- Ariel Sharon

I couldn`t be a cameraman or a designer or an actor - I have to be a director because I learned how to do that from my dad. Generally, I`ve never known quite how to fit in in civilian life, but on set, making a film, I know exactly where to go, how to behave and how I fit.

- Joe Wright

I worked some pretty awful jobs through the years. Everything from servicing fire extinguishers in the gutters of downtown LA to taking my boss`s dogs to be de-skunked and living with the smell in my truck for months! There`s a part of me that misses the civilian life, but I don`t miss sitting in an office every day. That was something I did for 15 years. For the most part, I have the best job in the whole world. I usually go to several studios in a day. I have a home recording booth, and sometimes I`ll do auditions from there - which is nice because I can save myself countless hours of driving - and do auditions in my underwear at three o`clock in the morning. I`m grateful every single day.

- Steve Blum

In any case, decisions on troop levels in the American system of government are not made by any general or set of generals but by the civilian leadership of the war effort.

- Bill Kristol

I think on civilian casualties they could do more. It`s actually something I`ve discussed with the editors involved. They`re aware of it, and I`m hopeful that there will be more reporting on that.

- Daniel Okrent

We are seeing continued growth in precision civilian applications such surveying, precision agriculture, infrastructure monitoring, geodesy, as well as volcano and earthquake research. More specifically at the Department of Transportation where I work, we are expanding our applications across the entire U.S. transportation infrastructure,

- Michael Shaw

We are seeing continued growth in precision civilian applications such surveying, precision agriculture, infrastructure monitoring, geodesy, as well as volcano and earthquake research. More specifically at the Department of Transportation where I work, we are expanding our applications across the entire U.S. transportation infrastructure,

- Michael Shaw

The destruction of civilian hamlets, the killing and the wounding of civilians, became vastly greater than it had been before, and it was very upsetting; but I still couldn`t bring myself to understand that the policy itself was wrong.

- Neil Sheehan

The thousands of Americans, including Greens, who protested in the streets in early 2003 were right. We need to hold public officials who got us into the Iraq war accountable. Being right doesn`t make us proud, it makes us angry and sorrowful for the needless deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, the more than 2,300 U.S. service members, and the hundreds of civilian contractors.

- Michael Berg

I want to major in some kind of engineering and get a civilian job in the Defense Department.

- Joseph Hayes

Midshipmen and cadets remain stronger and more aggressive than their male counterparts at civilian schools. They eagerly play sports such as rugby, boxing, karate, lacrosse, and football. They drive fast cars, usually sports cars. They play hard. They drink hard. They are physical, often abusive among each other. They are not trying to prove their manhood: they are celebrating their masculinity. They are competitive, often vulgar, and tough, and every citizen who may someday send a friend or relative into war should rejoice, because combat is competitive, vulgar, and tough, and they will be leading men in combat.

- James Webb

The issue of terrorism must be dealt with firmly. We must work very hard to avoid loss of life. We must work very hard to avoid civilian casualties. And those terrorists and Baathists are holding the people of Fallujah hostage. We must release the hostages.

- Ahmed Kamal

We receive reports now on a daily basis from our own people on the ground in Darfur on widespread atrocities and grave violations of human rights against the civilian population.

- Alfredo Viegas

I think you also understand that one of the key things that`s got to be done in Iraq is to build a mentality of understanding that the military needs to be subordinate to civilian control and respectful of its own people.

- Alice Stone Blackwell

Mr. Chairman, the price for continuing this war is too high, not only in budgetary terms, but in American lives, Iraqi civilian casualties blamed on America and in the steady increase in the terrorist ranks that this war is provoking around the globe.

- Alireza Jafarzadeh

For decades, the violence in the Middle East has claimed a multitude of innocent civilian victims: Men, women and children, Arab and Israeli.

- Alireza Jafarzadeh

When it comes to civilian deaths, violent hostilities play no favorites.

- Alireza Jafarzadeh

Well my briefing was that Honduras was a small and vulnerable country just back on the path towards democracy it was about to have just before I arrived, the first elections for a civilian president in more than 9 years.

- Aliza Herzberg

The conduct of President Bush`s war of choice has been plagued with incompetent civilian leadership decisions that have cost many lives and rendered the war on and occupation of Iraq a strategic policy disaster for the United States.

- Allama Iqbal

Al Qaeda operates by launching surprise attacks on civilian targets with the goal of massive casualties. Our only means for preventing future attacks, which could use WMDs, is by acquiring information that allows for pre-emptive action.

- Allan Kline

It has never demonstrated any desire to provide humane treatment to captured Americans. If anything, the murders of Nicholas Berg and Daniel Pearl declare al Qaeda`s intentions to kill even innocent civilian prisoners.

- Allan Kline

Nonetheless, Article 5 makes clear that if an Iraqi civilian who is not a member of the armed forces, has engaged in attacks on Coalition forces, the Geneva Convention permits the use of more coercive interrogation approaches to prevent future attacks.

- Allan Kline

Last year, Congress gave the Department of Defense the authority to design a new civilian personnel system for its employees as part of the defense authorization bill.

- Amir Salim

We want to look at how we would respond because, as hard as we work to prevent terrorist attacks here North America, if we have a catastrophic terrorist attack, it is the military that is going to have to go in at the request of civilian authorities.

- Amy Baylor

For those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, we are grateful that such men and women were among us. For those who continue to serve, we honor their commitment. For those who return to civilian life, we honor their service.

- Andreas Rummelt

Twenty-five million veterans are living among us today. These men and women selflessly set aside their civilian lives to put on the uniform and serve us.

- Andreas Rummelt

This was the period when I used all the influence I had to get the British to abandon their export trade, and as much as possible convert all of their manufacturing facilities to the immediate needs of the war, including civilian, as well as military requirements.

- Andrew Kaplan

The violence and burnings in Lebanon were the work of Syrian soldiers and workers dressed in civilian clothes.

- Andrew Kennedy

With freedom comes responsibility, and I can think of no responsibility greater than putting on a U.S military uniform and standing in the gap between an enemy threat and civilian life.

- Andrew Strauss

It`s amazing to be here as a soldier and as a civilian as well. I just hope it lifts the spirits of every soldier out there. It`s a great thing to win a medal for your country.

- Ann Jennings

We are like civilian soldiers.

- Anthony Wollschlager

I think the military would benefit by a change in civilian leadership, but I think it`s important that we are cautious in how we effect that change. I think ... (Rumsfeld) should be encouraged to retire. I think he has done a number of good things for the military, particularly prior to Iraq, and we have to recognize the whole career of the person and acknowledge what he has done that is good and allow him to have a graceful retirement.

- Asim Butt

We take every effort to avoid civilian casualties, but (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein has to take a lot of the blame as long as he continues to violate the no-fly zones and attack our aircraft,

- Barbara Helms