Every age has its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions and its own peculiar preconceptions.

Only great and general battles can produce great results

There are very few men-and they are the exceptions-who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment

In war, while everything is simple, even the simplest thing is difficult. Difficulties accumulate and produce frictions which no one can comprehend who has not seen war.

The best strategy is always to be very strong.

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 general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.