The more a general is accustomed to place heavy demands on his soldiers, the more he can depend on their response.

Men are always more inclined to pitch their estimate of the enemy's strength too high than too low, such is human nature.

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

The object of defense is preservation; and since it is easier to hold ground than to take it, defense is easier than attack. But defense has a passive purpose: preservation; and attack a positive one: conquest.... If defense is the stronger form of war, yet has a negative object, it follows that it should be used only so long as weakness compels, and be abandoned as soon as we are strong enough to pursue a positive object.

Modern wars are seldom fought without hatred between nations; this serves more or less as a substitute for hatred between individuals.

War should never be thought of as something autonomous, but always as an instrument of policy.

The difficulty of accurate recognition constitutes one of the most serious sources of friction in war, by making things appear entirely different from what one had expected.