If you give orders and explain nothing, you might get obedience, but you'll get no creativity. If you tell them your purpose, then when your original plan is shown to be faulty, they'll find another way to achieve your goal. Explaining to your men doesn't weaken their respect for you, it proves your respect for them.

Any decent person who knows what warfare is can never go into battle with a whole heart.

The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them.

Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.

I have to win this now, and for all time, or I’ll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse.

If human beings are all monsters, why should I sacrifice anything for them?" "Because they are beautiful monsters..., And when they live in a network of peace and hope, when they trust the world and their deepest hungers are fulfilled, then within that system, that delicate web, there is joy. That is what we live for, to bind the monsters together, to murder their fear and give birth to their beauty.

The selective voluntary blindness of human beings allows them to ignore the moral consequences of their choices. It has been one of the species' most valuable traits, in terms of the survival of any particular human community.