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# Weekend Words: General
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/weekend-words-general/
- Published: 2017-07-30T13:30:01.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:26:53.000Z
- Description: "War is too important to be left to the generals."
- Author: Weekend Editors
- Tags: Art, Weekend, Weekend Words, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:30(2016, 2017, part 3)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/07/general.jpg)

Benjamin West, “The Death of General Wolfe” (1770), oil on canvas, 152.6 x 214.5 cm, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (image via Web Gallery of Art)

In the middle of American Heroes Week, Donald J. Trump took a break from [cyber-shaming](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/opinion/donald-trump-jeff-sessions.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&%5Fr=0&ref=hyperallergic.com) his Attorney General into resigning and issued a ban on transgendered people from the military, a decision he made, as he [tweeted](http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/26/politics/trump-military-transgender/index.html?ref=hyperallergic.com), “After consultation with my Generals and military experts.”

And two days later he [replaced](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/us/politics/reince-priebus-white-house-trump.html?%5Fr=0&ref=hyperallergic.com) the hapless Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff with [John F. Kelly](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/opinion/sunday/mattis-mcmaster-foreign-policy-trump.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&%5Fr=0&ref=hyperallergic.com), the Secretary of Homeland Security and a retired four-star Marine general.

See below for who else refers to military leadership as “my generals.”

> War is too important to be left to the generals.  
>  
> **—Georges Clémenceau**

> Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their grip.  
>  
> **—Barbara Tuchman, *August 1914***

> I didn’t fire him \[General MacArthur\] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that’s not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them would be in jail.  
>  
> **—Harry S. Truman**

> What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.  
>  
> **—Samuel Johnson**

> You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.  
>  
> **—Marie Curie**

> Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.  
>  
> **—Aristotle**

> If I were to command a general to turn into a seagull, and if the general did not obey, that would not be the general’s fault. It would be mine.  
>  
> **—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, *The Little Prince***

> My generals should be like bull terriers on chains, and they should want war, war, war \[…\] But what happens now? I want to go ahead with my aggressive politics and the generals try to stop me.  
>  
> **—Adolf Hitler**

> Weigh Hannibal — how many pounds will you find in that Great General?  
>  
> **—Juvenal, *Satires***

> Russia has two generals in whom she can confide — General January and February.  
>  
> **—Czar Nicholas I**

> We must judge of a form of government by its general tendency, not by happy accidents.  
>  
> **—Thomas Babington Macaulay**

> Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people, by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.  
>  
> **—James Madison**

> As a general rule, nobody has money who ought to have it.  
>  
> **—Benjamin Disraeli**

> The most annoying trait of Right-Wing Outlaws in general is a lazy incuriosity about the real world. They know their lines, they’re sure who the good guys and the bad guys are. Therefore they view the passing world as a kind of animated “Bartlett’s Quotations” — that is, as handy source material with which to illustrate, rather than challenge, preconceived views.  
>  
> **—James Fallows**

> At the age of four with paper hats and wooden swords, we’re all generals. Only some of us never grow out of it.  
>  
> **—James Ussher, *Romanoff and Juliet***