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clinging to the lessons or memories of defeated battles can hinder progress and innovation, trapping military minds in outdated concepts and limiting their ability to adapt to new challenges.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.
We are not at war against Islam.
And he could not tell why the struggle was worthwhile, why he had determined to use the utmost himself and his heritage from the personalities he had passed... He stretched out his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky. I know myself," he cried, "But that is all.
What they could do with 'round here is a good war. What else can you expect with peace running wild all over the place? You know what the trouble with peace is? No organization.
There's never been a culture that wasn't obsessed with food. The sort of sad thing is that our obsession is no longer with food, but with the price of food.
We often think we express negative emotions, not because we cannot help it, but because we should express them.
Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe that utterly dwarfs β in time, in space, and in potential β the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors.
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