Pete Hegseth > Quotes

“We need to clean house of woke generals. Currently the Department of Defense has forty-four four-star generals with a total force of 1.2 million serving. In World War II, there were only seven four-star generals and over 21 million were serving. It’s upside down, and ripe for firings—without replacements.”
― Pete Hegseth, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free

“Plato records the dialogues that Socrates had with a number of bystanders, like Euthyphro, Gorgias, and Meno. In these dialogues, Socrates employs Logos to prove that there is only one God, one ultimate standard of goodness (virtue), and that man cannot know about God unless He reveals Himself to us. These, and many other logical proofs by Socrates, resulted in two things: First, he was put to death by the Greeks for “corrupting the youth” and “atheism” because he argued against the prevailing view of this time (sound familiar?). And second, five hundred years later, he would be recognized as the first proto-Christian. His views became the center of Hellenistic philosophy, in which Christianity was formed.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“From Trotsky, to Lenin, to Mao, to Castro—to socialist Bernie Sanders and Comrade Ocasio-Cortez—a common tool for manipulating paideia is to use words that people associate with positive virtues, but to change their meaning.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Losing my legs was the worst day of my life, simply because every day after that was better. Every day after that I was a little more healed, a little better for prosthetics, a little more experienced. I just wish people would take the time to appreciate the fact that we let so many things into our headspace and dictate if we’re going to enjoy this moment or not that really should have no control over us. And you can use perspective to get there. Let’s say you’re”
― Pete Hegseth, Modern Warriors: Real Stories from Real Heroes

“Dewey proceeded to argue that most students do not need a liberal education; that could be left to the elites.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Equality is the pursuit of equal opportunity; equity is the false promise of equal outcome.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Get with the program! White people are inherently oppressive. Gender is completely fluid. Climate change will destroy the world. And America is the ultimate source of evil in the world. Up is down, left is right, good and evil are subjective—until an educator tells you who or what is good and evil, and then you must comply.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Between the 19th century and the 1950s, the American university was gradually transformed from an institution intended to transmit knowledge into an institution designed to serve technocracy.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Yes, politics is downstream of culture. But even deeper than that, culture is downstream of religion.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“But what if a general—or lots of generals—lost billions of dollars of military equipment? Specifically”
― Pete Hegseth, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free

“It insists that the plasticity of the child shall not be artificially and prematurely hardened into a philosophy of life, but that experimental naturalistic aptitudes shall constitute the true education. (emphasis mine)7”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“one were to place the founding fathers on a spectrum between traditional Christian authority and Deistic rationalism, it might be reflected this way—Christians: John Jay, Patrick Henry, Roger Sherman, John Witherspoon, Benjamin Rush; mixed theology: Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, George Washington; and Deists: James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Worst of all, military leaders who go along with the leftist social experiments—get promoted. It’s been that way since Obama, and is on hyperspeed today.”
― Pete Hegseth, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free

“I also didn’t want to be in a higher headquarters unit—that’s why I got out of the Army in 2014. Higher headquarters crush your soul. They are bureaucratic, political, and mind-numbingly boring. I wanted to get back out on the gun range, back on the drill floor, out with soldiers.”
― Pete Hegseth, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free

“If we want to live free, we’d better be willing to die trying.”
― Pete Hegseth, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free

“Andrew Breitbart famously said, and I agree, that “politics is downstream of culture.” Meaning, politics is a lagging indicator. Things change in our politics because our culture has already changed.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“As Mark Levin recently documented, the Democrat Party really does hate America. Our Constitution, our flag, our faith, and our creeds.”
― Pete Hegseth, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free

“His pragmatic approach to education set most students on a path of vocational training, untethered from the WCP.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Abraham Lincoln’s warning that “the philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation becomes the philosophy of government in the next.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Ultimately, this type of approach is not the fault of the troops—it is the fault of the general class.”
― Pete Hegseth, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free

“Sure, some of our generals may (or may not) have been combat leaders as captains or lieutenant colonels, but once you pin a star on your shoulder, the political pressure mounts. Go-along-to-get-along, and get promoted, is the smoothest path. Don’t rock the boat, do what your political masters tell you, never admit mistakes—and get promoted. Then, once you retire, you get to collect a pension and a sweet job from Lockheed Martin.”
― Pete Hegseth, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free

“Paideia is made up of ideas, presumptions, beliefs, affections, and ways of understanding that define us.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Without realizing it, today’s American students absorb a deep affection for scientism (science is the only way to find truth), equity/equality (there is nothing better or worse, just different), individualism (identity politics), neo-Marxism (the government can and should solve all inequalities), along with a host of other modern and postmodern affections that lead to servitude (it’s all about your job).”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Human civilization was rooted in raw power and superstition. Life, as Thomas Hobbes wrote, was brutish and short. To our eyes, their customs were weird and pagan. People were told what to believe, and they did. Each tribe or nation had a god. And broader people-groups shared multiple gods. Most men were indentured to authoritarian leaders. The Greco-Roman-Christian civilization changed all that. Today we take this for granted. And, because we take it for granted, we are about to lose civilization as we know it.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Under the old form of classical Christian education, children gained wisdom by studying history and the classics.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“we want to live free, we’d better be willing to die trying.”
― Pete Hegseth, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free

“The closest thing I’ve ever seen to God is when you see people sacrifice knowingly without Any concern for themselves. -- Staff Sergeant David Bellavia, US Army in "Modern Warriors”
― Pete Hegseth, Modern Warriors: Real Stories from Real Heroes

“Paideia, simply defined, represents the deeply seated affections, thinking, viewpoints, and virtues embedded in children at a young age, or, more simply, the rearing, molding, and education of a child.”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Propaganda not only changes the way we think about politics and contemporary life, . . . [Progressives] imbue other words and phrases—hierarchy, for example, or traditional family—with negative connotations.”8”
― Pete Hegseth, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation

“Joining a team often starts with self-interest, but if that continues to be your priority, you have a problem.”
― Pete Hegseth, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free