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.

By 'intelligence' we mean every sort of information about the enemy and his country - the basis, in short, of our own plans and operations.

There are times when the utmost daring is the height of wisdom.

A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.

War is the realm of uncertainty; three-quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. ... war is the realm of chance. No other human activity gives it greater scope; no other has such incessant and varied dealings with this intruder. Chance makes everything more uncertain and interferes with the whole course of events.

Politics is the womb in which war develops - where its outlines already exist in their hidden rudimentary form, like the characteristics of living creatures in their embryos.

War is an act of force, and to the application of that force there is no limit. Each of the adversaries forces the hand of the other, and a reciprocal action results which in theory can have no limit.