What we should admire is the acute fulfillment of the unspoken assumptions, the smooth harmony of the whole activity, which only become evident in the final success.

In the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.

Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.

Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.

Whenever armed forces . . . are used, the idea of combat must be present. . . . The end for which a soldier is recruited, clothed, armed, and trained, the whole object of his sleeping, eating, drinking, and marching is simply that he should fight at the right place and the right time.

War therefore is an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.

The majority of people are timid by nature, and that is why they constantly exaggerate danger. all influences on the military leader, therefore, combine to give him a false impression of his opponent's strength, and from this arises a new source of indecision.