Mankind has had ten-thousand years of experience at fighting and if we must fight, we have no excuse for not fighting well.

The printing press is the greatest weapon in the armoury of the modern commander.

It is difficult to keep quiet when everything is being done wrong, but the less you lose your temper the greater your advantage. Also then you will not go mad yourself.

Suppose we were (as we might be) an influence, an idea, a thing intangible, invulnerable, without front or back, drifting about like a gas? Armies were like plants, immobile, firm-rooted, nourished through long stems to the head. We might be a vapour, blowing where we listed Ours should be a war of detachment. We were to contain the enemy by the silent threat of a vast, unknown desert

The desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped.

He was old and wise, which meant tired and disappointed.

They taught me that no man could be their leader except he ate the ranks' food, wore their clothes, lived level with them, and yet appeared better in himself.