Skip to content

Well, we want to do everything with welfare and everything else ahead of the primary responsibility of government which is to govern and to protect the people.

— Matthew Ridgway An Interview with General Matthew B. Ridgway (1982)

Another quote →

Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: "An Interview with General Matthew B. Ridgway" (1982)
Work: An Interview with General Matthew B. Ridgway, 1982
Source quality: Source identified Names the work or year, but without an exact location.

More by Matthew Ridgway

Character is the bedrock on which the whole edifice of leadership rests. It is the prime element for which every profession, every corporation, every industry searches in evaluating a member of its organization. With it, the full worth of an individual can be developed.

Excerpts from the article Leadership in Military Review (1966)

All Matthew Ridgway quotes →

Topics

Government

More quotes by Matthew Ridgway

I think that a farsighted statesman could have seen that this little sliver of land, the Korean peninsula, off the great Asian land mass, was of great strategic importance.

An Interview with General Matthew B. Ridgway (1982)

The commander belongs right at that spot, not at some rear command post. He should be there before the crisis erupts, if possible. If it is not possible, then he should get there aa soon as he can after it develops.

Excerpts from the article Leadership in Military Review (1966)

Some people thought I wore the grenades as a gesture of showmanship. This was not correct. They were purely utilitarian. Many a time, in Europe and Korea, men in tight spots blasted their way out with grenades.

Throughout my two years as Chief of Staff, I felt I was being called upon to tear down, rather than build up, the ultimately decisive element in a properly proportioned fighting force on which the world could rest its hope for maintaining the peace or, if the catastrophe of war came, for enforcing its will upon those who broke that peace.

Remember there are many others on your team, and be inwardly humble. Every man’s life is equally precious, although all are at the disposal of our country, and the contribution each makes in battle is of equal potential value.

Excerpts from the article Leadership in Military Review (1966)

All Matthew Ridgway quotes →

You may also like

Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.

Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene (1589)

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

James Madison

Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

Leon Trotsky The Revolution Betrayed (1936)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Adams

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Matthew Ridgway (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.