Soldiers are martyrs to ambition. [ Proverb ]

All are not soldiers that go to the wars. [ Proverb ]

Water, fire, and soldiers quickly make room. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

So work the honey-bees;
Creatures, that by a rule in nature teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king and officers of sorts;
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they, with merry march, bring home.
To the tent royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum.
Delivering over to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone. [ William Shakespeare ]

Soldiers! from yonder pyramids forty centuries look down upon you. [ Napoleon I ]

The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction. [ Spurgeon ]

Great men rejoice in adversity just as brave soldiers triumph in war. [ Seneca ]

Great men often rejoice at crosses of fortune, just as brave soldiers do at wars. [ Seneca ]

In the mouths of many men soft words are like roses that soldiers put into the muzzles of their muskets on holidays. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]

Liberty knows nothing but victories. Soldiers call Bunker Hill a defeat; but liberty dates from it though Warren lay dead on the field. [ Wendell Phillips ]

Charms which, like flowers, lie on the surface and always glitter, easily produce vanity; hence women, wits, players, soldiers, are vain, owing to their presence, figure and dress. On the contrary, other excellences, which lie down like gold and are discovered with difficulty, leave their possessors modest and proud. [ Richter ]

Gentlemen, do you know what is the finest speech that I ever in my life heard or read? It is the address of Garibaldi to his Roman soldiers, when he told them: Soldiers, what I have to offer you is fatigue, danger, struggle and death; the chill of the cold night in the free air, and heat under the burning sun; no lodgings, no munitions, no provisions, but forced marches, dangerous watchposts and the continual struggle with the bayonet against batteries; - those who love freedom and their country may follow me. That is the most glorious speech I ever heard in my life. [ Kossuth ]