“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war”

Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) said in 1939, “The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.” The saying was also used by U.S. General Hugh Aloysius Drum (1879-1951) and Admiral Hyman G. Rickover (1900-1986). The saying is often listed as a “Chinese proverb.”
 
“The more you sweat in practice/training, the less you bleed in battle” is a popular sports and fitness adage.
 
   
Wikipedia: Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek (October 31, 1887 – April 5, 1975) was a political and military leader of 20th-century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí (蔣介石) or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng (蔣中正) in Mandarin.
   
Google Books
The Sangreal
By Irwin St John Tucker
Chicago, IL: The author
1919
Pg. 14:
GERAINT.
But this is the reason why such folk were born,
To toil and sweat in peace, and bleed in war,
That gentlefolk spend their lives in chivalry.
 
2 August 1939, Dunkirk (NY) Evening Observer, “Display of Force in Maneuvers Designed to Keep U.S. at Peace” (United Press), pg. 2, col. 6:
Quoting Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek of China, Gen. Drum said:
 
“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.”
(Major General Hugh A. Drum, commander of the first field army of the United States—ed.)
 
28 August 1939, New York (NY) Times, “Soul of an Army”:
For, as Chiang Kai-shek and General Drum have both observed, “the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.”
 
Google Books
December 1940, Popular Science, “Soldiers in Overalls,” pg. 85, col. 1:
There was plenty of sweating done — but then, as China’s General Chiang Kai-shek says, “the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.”
 
21 September 1941, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH), “Lend-Lease Gives Time, Burton Says,” pg. 12C, col. 7:
He quoted Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek to this effect: “The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war.”
   
Google Books
Current Biography yearbook
Volume 14
New York, NY: H.W. Wilson Company
1953
Pg. 58:
Captain Rickover sums up his own philosophy in one sentence : “The more you sweat in peace the less you bleed in war (Look, March 10, 1953).
 
Google Books
Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations
By Robert Debs Heinl
Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Inst.
1966
Pg. 330:
The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.
Chinese Proverb
 
Google Books
The Executive’s Book of Quotations
By Julia Vitullo-Martin and J. Robert Moskin
New York, NY: Oxford University Press
1994
Pg. 275:
“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.”
Admiral Hyman Rickover (recalled on his death, July 8, 1986)