Skip to content

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington Quotes

1769–1852 United Kingdom

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was a British soldier and statesman. Rising to prominence during the Peninsular War, he became a national hero in Britain after the Napoleonic Wars during which he led the victorious Anglo-Allied forces at the Battle of Waterloo.

United Kingdom
Military leaders

Also known as: Arthur Wellesley, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, Duke of Wellington, Wellesley, Arthur, Wellington

Random Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington quote

48 quotes

It is quite impossible for me or any other man to command a British Army under the existing system. We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers; and of late years we have been doing everything in our power, both by law and by publications, to relax the discipline by which alone such men can be kept in order.

It has been a damned serious business... Blucher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing — the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. … By God! I don't think it would have been done if I had not been there.

My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won: the bravery of my troops hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to win such a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expense of so many gallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune but for the result to the public.

It is very true that I have said that I considered Napoleon's presence in the field equal to forty thousand men in the balance. This is a very loose way of talking; but the idea is a very different one from that of his presence at a battle being equal to a reinforcement of forty thousand men.

I don't know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but by God, they terrify me.

Disputed

If a gentleman happens to be born in a stable, it does not follow that he should be called a horse.

Misattributed Genetic Studies in Joyce (1995)

The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.

Misattributed

[I don't] care a twopenny damn what [becomes] of the ashes of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Disputed

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.