For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought.

The military weapon is but one of the means that serve the purposes of war: one out of the assortment which grand strategy can employ.

To foster the people's willing spirit is often as important as to possess the more concrete forms of power.

The most consistently successful commanders, when faced by an enemy in a position that was strong naturally or materially, have hardly ever tackled it in a direct way. And when, under pressure of circumstances, they have risked a direct attack, the result has commonly been to blot their record with a failure.

The downfall of civilized states tends to come not from the direct assaults of foes, but from internal decay combined with the consequences of exhaustion in war.

The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.

Ensure that both plan and dispositions are flexible, adaptable to circumstances. Your plan should foresee and provide for a next step in case of success or failure.