War is the province of danger.

Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.

The difficulty of accurate recognition constitutes one of the most serious sources of friction in war, by making things appear entirely different from what one had expected.

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.

War is...a trinity of violence, chance, and reason.

War is a conflict of great interests which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that is it different from others.

Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. The difficulties accumulate and end by producing a kind of friction that is inconceivable unless one has experienced war. ... Countless minor incidents - the kind you can never really foresee - combine to lower the general level of performance, so that one always falls short of the intended goal.