Given the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity

We must, therefore, be confident that the general measures we have adopted will produce the results we expect. most important in this connection is the trust which we must have in our lieutenants. consequently, it is important to choose men on whom we can rely and to put aside all other considerations. if we have made appropriate preparations, taking into account all possible misfortunes, so that we shall not be lost immediately if they occur, we must boldly advance into the shadows of uncertainty.

Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.

I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together.

In War, the young soldier is very apt to regard unusual fatigues as the consquence of faults, mistakes, and embarrassment in the conduct of the whole, and to become distressed and depondent as a consequence. This would not happen if he had been prepared for this beforehand by exercises in peace.

War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.

If we read history with an open mind, we cannot fail to conclude that, among all the military virtues, the energetic conduct of war has always contributed most to glory and success.