Not quite an action hero quote - the quote is very much after the action. But, Anne Bonney’s last words to her lover, the pirate ‘Calico’ Jack Rackham are pretty memorable:
Though it involves no verbal quotes, I am reminded of a story about when the Glenn Miller Orchestra was on a USO tour – in England, I think. They were entertaining the troops, outdoors, and somebody shouted, “Incoming!” All the soldiers ran for cover as a flying bomb dropped and exploded (harming no one). Up on the stand, the band played on, not missing a beat. The soldiers, astonished, leaped to their feat and cheered. I once saw a documentary that included a film clip dramatizing the event; a surviving member of the band confirmed the story, saying, in essence, the musicians knew where they were and what they were doing and saw no reason to duck for cover.
That’s cool! 
That was in the movie The Glenn Miller Story with Jimmy Stewart.
When I was in Iraq in 2003, I was talking to an Army captain who complained that the only news he got on his sat. tv was the BBC. I said that I liked the BBC.
He replied that they only talked about how screwed up Iraq is, that he wanted to be lied to, that he wanted CNN. I said, “you want to be lied to, you want Fox News.”
He replied, “I’m not a fucking idiot, I don’t want to be lied to that much, I just want to be lied to a litttle bit.”
I always thought that was a great line.
This is a great thread idea…there are a huge number of wonderful, cold-blooded, ballsy quotes that people never get to read because history is so mistaught as to be boring.
Off the top of my head:
Stonewall Jackson, sitting on a fence rail, sucking a lemon, surveying the cornfield at Antietam, on which the dead and wounded of both sides lay thick: “God…has been very kind to us this day.”
General John Corse, shot in the side of the face at Allatoona, telegraphing General William Tecumseh Sherman: “I am short a cheek-bone and ear, but am able to whip all hell yet!” When they met in person later, Sherman noted the bandaged wound didn’t seem that severe: “They damned near missed you, John!”
I can’t find an online cite for the Black Prince at Poitiers…maybe I can dig it up later.
I once tried to compile a list of these…I’ll revisit this thread with more if I can think of them.
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Heard this in a Civil War documentary: A Confederate cavalry troop, in the woods, was suddenly surrounded by Yankees on either side. The lieutenant asked the commanding officer (I forget his name and rank), “What should we do?” The CO replied, “Split the troop and charge both ways!” They did. They won.
Good one. My great-great grandfather was one of the dead in that cornfield, BTW.
That was Nathan Bedford Forrest.
“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”
as good a link as I could find. Actually indicates it predates Bunker Hill, which is what most of us probably think its from.
Legendary Revolutionary War figure Daniel Morgan is about as close to a real-life action hero as you can get. He was a gregarious mountain of a man, who was frequently at the forefront of battle. (In the attack on Quebec, he twice led his men across British barricades.)
Known as “the Old Wagoner” from his days as a wagon master in the French and Indian War, Morgan carried on his back a mass of scar tissue earned during that conflict:
On the eve of the Battle of Cowpens (1781) Morgan used the scars on his back as a visual aid and motivator for his men:
The next day, on the battlefield:
Morgan’s deathbed scene many years later was also worthy of an action hero. As Morgan lay ill, Morgan’s physician advised his patient to get his affairs in order.
“Take her down” - Howard Walter Gilmore Commander US Navy, Captain of the USS Growler.
Stranded on the bridge, and wounded by machine gun fire, Cmdr. Gilmore ordered the hatch closed. He gave his life to save his crew.
Here is his Medal of Honor citation
Jin Ke of the Warring States period, before he set off to assassinate the king of Qin (the future Qin Shihuangdi): “The wind pierces, the water freezes–and the hero goes never to return!” (The attempt failed.)
There was also an unusual tactic in the Warring States period in which the frontmost line killed themselves as a display of their callous disregard for life. (As the Cartoon History of the World pointed out, this was not a tactic to be repated often! :D)
Liu Bang, first emperor of the Han dynasty, in response to a threat from a rival who had taken his father hostage and threatened to boil the old man alive: “Send me a cup of the soup.” (Eventually, negotiations succeeded and Daddy Dearest was not cooked.)
Ban Chao of the Later Han dynasty, motivating his troops to press into enemy territory: “What better way to net a tiger’s cub than to enter its den?” (It would later be used as an idiom meaning: “Taking great risks for an even greater reward”.)
Sun Quan of the Three Kingdoms era, having been convinced to take a stand against Cao Cao just prior to the battle of Chi Bi: “Whosoever dares breathe another word of surrender shall be like this table!” chops a corner off said table (IIRC, this is an actual quote attributed to him and not just made up for Romance of the Three Kingdoms)
Zu Ti of the Eastern Jin period, rallying his men from his boat, struck the water with his oar and declared: “If I cannot restore these lands, then let me as these waters!”
(There’s a lot more, but I remember most of the quotes in Chinese so it’s kind of hard to look this stuff up. And a lot of the badass quotes are in poetry form, making it even harder to translate, like Wen Tian Xiang’s Song of Righteousness.)
Is this quotation missing a word or two?
“No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making other bastards die for their country.” – General George Patton
General Winfield Scott Hancock at Gettysburg. When the Confedreates opened the artillery bombardment prior to Pickett’s Charge, it was the heaviest artillery attack up to that point in the war. As the Union soldiers huddled behind the stone wall, Hancock rode out in front of the line on horseback.
When someone protested, “General, the corps commander ought not to risk his life that way,” Hancock is said to have replied, “There are times when a corps commander’s life does not count.”
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Hancock again…I should have added this part. The day before (July 2nd), Hancock had been organizing the defense of the center of Cemetery Ridge. He realized that there was a gap in the Union line just as a large Confederate column bore down on it.
Shelby Foote put it well:
The 262 men of the First Minnesota charged the 1,600 oncoming Confererates, and suffered one of the highest loss rates of any American unit in any war.
They bought Hancock ten minutes. The line was saved.
Those are the kind of guys Lincoln was talking about when he said,
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Kruschev in the middle of a photo op leaned over to Kennedy and said, “History is on our side, we will bury you.” It’s an old saying and he meant Russia will outlast the US, but it’s more cold blooded the way Kennedy took it.
"We are the Judean People’s Front Crack Suicide Squad! Men . . . "
What do you mean? I’ll have to go back and actually dig up the quote and re-translate it, but what the guy meant was that if he could not succeed, then he wanted to be like the waters of the river: i.e., gone and never to return.
(And, I dunno, it worked, I guess, because he did lead the troops to victory.)
Patton’s reply to an order not to enter Messina, after his soldiers had already taken it:
“Ask them if they want me to give it back.”
Wikiquote also credits him with this one:
“We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”
Figures that would come from old blood and guts.