There is only one decisive victory: the last.
To discover how much of our resources must be mobilized for war, we must first examine our political aim and that of the enemy. We must gauge the strength and situation of the opposite state. We must gauge the character and abilities of its government and people and do the same in regard to our own. Finally, we must evaluate the political sympathies of other states and the effect the war may have on them.
There are cases in which the greatest daring is the greatest wisdom.
Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.
It should be noted that the seeds of wisdom that are to bear fruit in the intellect are sown less by critical studies and learned monographs than by insights, broad impressions, and flashes of intuition.
To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it.
Whoever does great things with small means has successfully reached the goal.
The very nature of interactions is bound to make it unpredictable.
After we have thought out everything carefully in advance and have sought and found without prejudice the most plausible plan, we must not be ready to abandon it at the slightest provocation. should this certainty be lacking, we must tell ourselves that nothing is accomplished in warfare without daring; that the nature of war certainly does not let us see at all times where we are going; that what is probable will always be probable though at the moment it may not seem so; and finally, that we cannot be readily ruined by a single error, if we have made reasonable preparations.
Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.
Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation form their purposes.
A general in time of war is constantly bombarded by reports both true and false; by errors arising from fear or negligence or hastiness; by disobedience born of right or wrong interpretations, of ill will; of a proper or mistaken sense of duty; of laziness; or of exhaustion; and by accident that nobody could have foreseen. In short, he is exposed to countless impressions, most of them disturbing, few of them encouraging. ... If a man were to yield to these pressures, he would never complete an operation.
The art of war in its highest point of view is policy.
Men are always more inclined to pitch their estimate of the enemy's strength too high than too low, such is human nature.
Every combat is the bloody and destructive measuring of the strength of forces, physical and moral; whoever at the close has the greatest amount of both left is the conqueror.
Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.
Blood is the price of victory
Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
Intelligence alone is not courage, we often see that the most intelligent people are irresolute. Since in the rush of events a man is governed by feelings rather than by thought, the intellect needs to arouse the quality of courage, which then supports and sustains it in action.
War is...a trinity of violence, chance, and reason.
War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.
The more a leader is in the habit of demanding from his men, the surer he will be that his demands will be answered.
The majority of people are timid by nature, and that is why they constantly exaggerate danger. all influences on the military leader, therefore, combine to give him a false impression of his opponent's strength, and from this arises a new source of indecision.
Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.
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