Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip.
Interpretation
The past influences present thinking and decision-making, especially in military contexts.
This quote illustrates how the memories of past conflicts and the influence of historical figures can dominate contemporary military strategy and thought. It suggests that clinging to the lessons or memories of defeated battles can hinder progress and innovation, trapping military minds in outdated concepts and limiting their ability to adapt to new challenges.
In practice
During a lecture on military strategy, one might use this quote to discuss how historical battles influence present decision-making.
In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.
When every autumn people said it could not last through the winter, and when every spring there was still no end in sight, only the hope that out of it all some good would accrue to mankind kept men and nations fighting. When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion.
One constant among the elements of 1914βas of any eraβwas the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.
Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence. It is no fun to write lumpishly, dully, in prose the reader must plod through like wet sand. But it is a pleasure to achieve, if one can, a clear running prose that is simple yet full of surprises. This does not just happen. It requires skill, hard work, a good ear, and continued practice.
The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard
Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female.
The banality of evil transmutes into the banality of sentimentality. The world is nothing but a problem to be solved by enthusiasm.
A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which.
I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I've never met an ordinary man, woman or child.
I cling to my imperfection, as the very essence of my being.
He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.
It is quite rare for God to provide a great man at the necessary moment to carry out some great deep, which is why when this unusual combination of circumstance does occur, history at once records the name of the chosen one and recommends him to the admiration of posterity.
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