To discover how much of our resources must be mobilized for war, we must first examine our political aim and that of the enemy. We must gauge the strength and situation of the opposite state. We must gauge the character and abilities of its government and people and do the same in regard to our own. Finally, we must evaluate the political sympathies of other states and the effect the war may have on them.

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

Where execution is dominant, as it is in the individual events of a war whether great or small, then intellectual factors are reduced to a minimum.

War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.

Criticism exists only to recognize the truth, not to act as judge.

Where absolute superiority is not attainable, you must produce a relative one at the decisive point by making skillful use ofwhat you have.

Lastly, the great uncertainty of all data in War is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not unfrequently — like the effect of a fog or moonshine — gives to things exaggerated dimensions and an unnatural appearance.