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.

Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. But helplessness induces hopelessness.

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.

To ensure attaining an objective, one should have alternate objectives. An attack that converges on one point should threaten, and be able to diverge against another. Only by this flexibility of aim can strategy be attuned to the uncertainty of war.

Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.

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