Self-reliance is the best defence against the pressures of the moment.

It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.

The more physical the activity, the less the difficulties will be. The more the activity becomes intellectual and turns into motives which exercise a determining influence on the commander's will, the more the difficulties will increase.

Our knowledge of circumstances has increased, but our uncertainty, instead of having diminished, has only increased. The reason of this is, that we do not gain all our experience at once, but by degrees; so our determinations continue to be assailed incessantly by fresh experience; and the mind, if we may use the expression, must always be under arms.

In War, the young soldier is very apt to regard unusual fatigues as the consquence of faults, mistakes, and embarrassment in the conduct of the whole, and to become distressed and depondent as a consequence. This would not happen if he had been prepared for this beforehand by exercises in peace.

Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.

Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds; it is a fallacy that must be exposed: War is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.