[The] aim is not so much to seek battle as to seek a strategic situation so advantageous that if it does not of itself produce the decision, its continuation by a battle is sure to achieve this. In other words, dislocation is the aim of strategy.

The unexpected cannot guarantee success, but it guarantees the best chance of success.

In war, the chief incalculable is the human will.

A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.

It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off ... since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.

The practical value of history is to throw the film of the past through the material projector of the present on to the screen of the future.

It is thus more potent, as well as more economical, to disarm the enemy than to attempt his destruction by hard fighting ... A strategist should think in terms of paralysing, not of killing.