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.

A conqueror is always a lover of peace.

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

Self-reliance is the best defence against the pressures of the moment.

If we do not learn to regard a war, and the separate campaigns of which it is composed, as a chain of linked engagements each leading to the next, but instead succumb to the idea that the capture of certain geographical points or the seizure of undefended provinces are of value in themselves, we are liable to regard them as windfall profits.

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

War is the province of danger.