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.

Close combat, man to man, is plainly to be regarded as the real basis of combat.

However much pains may be taken to combine the soldier and the citizen in one and the same individual, whatever may be done to nationalize wars, never will it be possible to do away with the professionalism of the business; and if that cannot be done, then those who belong to it will always look upon themselves as a kind of guild, in the regulations, laws, and customs in which the "Spirit of War" finds its expression. It would be very wrong to look down upon this corporate spirit, or esprit de corps, which may and should exist more or less in every Army.

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.

If the enemy is to be coerced, you must put him in a situation that is even more unpleasant than the sacrifice you call on him to make. The hardships of the situation must not be merely transient - at least not in appearance. Otherwise, the enemy would not give in, but would wait for things to improve.

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.

In War more than anywhere else in the world things happen differently to what we had expected, and look differently when near, to what they did at a distance.