In war more than anywhere else, things do not turn out as we expect.

The invention of gunpowder and the constant improvement of firearms are enough in themselves to show that the advance of civilization has done nothing practical to alter or deflect the impulse to destroy the enemy, which is central to the very idea of war.

To achieve victory we must mass our forces at the hub of all power & movement. The enemy's 'Center of Gravity'

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.

Only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent.

Of all the passions that inspire a man in a battle, none, we have to admit, is so powerful and so constant as the longing for honor and reknown.

Every age has its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions and its own peculiar preconceptions.