War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.

I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together.

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.

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.

Action in war is like movement in a resistant element. Just as the simplest and most natural of movements, walking, cannot easily be performed in water, so in war, it is difficult for normal efforts to achieve even moderate results.

Where absolute superiority is not attainable, you must produce a relative one at the decisive point by making skillful use ofwhat you have.

The general unreliability of all information presents a special problem in war: all action takes place, so to speak, in the twilight, which, like fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are. Whatever is hidden from full view in this feeble light has to be guessed at by talent, or simply left to chance. So once again for the lack of objective knowledge, one has to trust to talent or to luck.