“If you want to talk to men, it doesn’t matter whether they are private soldiers or staff officers, if you want to talk to them as a soldier, and not as a politician, there are only two things necessary. The first is to have something to say that is worth saying, to know what you want to say: and the second, and terribly important thing, is to believe in yourself. Don’t go and tell men something you don’t believe yourself, because they’ll spot it and if they don’t spot it at the time, they’ll find out. Then you’re finished.”

Field Marshal Sir William Slim (1891 to 1970)

William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim of Yarralumla and Bishopston, was a British Field Marshal and Chief of the Imperial General Staff who turned back an attempted Japanese invasion of India and defeated the Japanese armies in Burma (Myanmar) during World War II.

Joining the British Army as a Private at the outbreak of World War I, Slim soon became an officer and campaigned in the Dardanelles, France, and Iraq. In 1920 he received a regular commission and joined the Indian Army, in which he served throughout the interwar period.