To secure peace is to prepare for war..

Only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent..

The object of defense is preservation; and since it is easier to hold ground than to take it, defense is easier than attack. But defense has a passiv….

Tactics is the art of using troops in battle; strategy is the art of using battles to win the war.

War is the province of danger..

The first and most important rule to observe...is to use our entire forces with the utmost energy. The second rule is to concentrate our power as muc….

In war the will is directed at an animate object that reacts..

Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference..

Battles decide everything..

We must, therefore, be confident that the general measures we have adopted will produce the results we expect. most important in this connection is t….

It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past..

No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy.

The more physical the activity, the less the difficulties will be. The more the activity becomes intellectual and turns into motives which exercise a….

War is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter..

After we have thought out everything carefully in advance and have sought and found without prejudice the most plausible plan, we must not be ready t….

The only situation a commander can know fully is his own: his opponent's he can know only from unreliable intelligence..

War is only caused through the political intercourse of governments and nations - war is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse with an ….

What do we mean by the defeat of the enemy? Simply the destruction of his forces, whether by death, injury, or any other means-either completely or e….

War is a conflict of great interests which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that is it different from others..

War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means..

However much pains may be taken to combine the soldier and the citizen in one and the same individual, whatever may be done to nationalize wars, neve….