The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish ... the kind of war on which they are embarking.

Talent and genius operate outside the rules, and theory conflicts with practice.

Friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper.

There are very few men-and they are the exceptions-who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment

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.

War is a conflict of great interests which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that is it different from others.

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