We repeat again: strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them. Even with the violence of emotion, judgment and principle must still function like a ship’s compass, which records the slightest variations however rough the sea.

All war presupposes human weakness and seeks to exploit it.

Great things alone can make a great mind, and petty things will make a petty mind unless a man rejects them as completely alien.

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.

The bloody solution of the crisis, the effort for the destruction of the enemy's forces, is the first-born son of war.

Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.

In war everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are difficult.