Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it.
In the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.
Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty and chance.
A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.
The side that feels the lesser urge for peace will naturally get the better bargain.
Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.
Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.
War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.
Only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent.
The Conqueror is always a lover of peace: he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.
War should never be thought of as something autonomous, but always as an instrument of policy.
Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.
Tactics is the art of using troops in battle; strategy is the art of using battles to win the war
Given the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity
Every age has its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions and its own peculiar preconceptions.
[...] to introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity
If you entrench yourself behind strong fortifications, you compel the enemy seek a solution elsewhere.
There are very few men-and they are the exceptions-who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment
To achieve victory we must mass our forces at the hub of all power & movement. The enemy's 'Center of Gravity'
Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.
War is a conflict of great interests which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that is it different from others.
The more a general is accustomed to place heavy demands on his soldiers, the more he can depend on their response.
Be audacious and cunning in your plans, firm and persevering in their execution, determined to find a glorious end.
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 bloody solution of the crisis, the effort for the destruction of the enemy's forces, is the first-born son of war.
Friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper.
The only situation a commander can know fully is his own: his opponent's he can know only from unreliable intelligence.
A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.
Men are always more inclined to pitch their estimate of the enemy's strength too high than too low, such is human nature.
There is nothing more common than to find considerations of supply affecting the strategic lines of a campaign and a war.
Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates; neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.
Strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one's balance in spite of them.
Knowing is different from doing and therefore theory must never be used as norms for a standard, but merely as aids to judgment.
Great things alone can make a great mind, and petty things will make a petty mind unless a man rejects them as completely alien.
Modern wars are seldom fought without hatred between nations; this serves more or less as a substitute for hatred between individuals.
...as man under pressure tends to give in to physical and intellectual weakness, only great strength of will can lead to the objective.
The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.
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.
Where absolute superiority is not attainable, you must produce a relative one at the decisive point by making skillful use ofwhat you have.
By 'intelligence' we mean every sort of information about the enemy and his country - the basis, in short, of our own plans and operations.
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.
Of all the passions that inspire a man in a battle, none, we have to admit, is so powerful and so constant as the longing for honor and reknown.
Where execution is dominant, as it is in the individual events of a war whether great or small, then intellectual factors are reduced to a minimum.
War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.
If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.
Knowledge in war is very simple, being concerned with so few subjects, and only with their final results at that. But this does not make its application easy.
In War more than anywhere else in the world things happen differently to what we had expected, and look differently when near, to what they did at a distance.
A prince or general can best demonstrate his genius by managing a campaign exactly to suit his objectives and his resources, doing neither too much nor too little.
What we should admire is the acute fulfillment of the unspoken assumptions, the smooth harmony of the whole activity, which only become evident in the final success.