Courage, above all things, is the first quality of a warrior.
The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.
War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.
Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.
Defense is the stronger form with the negative object, and attack the weaker form with the positive object.
War is the province of danger.
War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering.
Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.
Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.
Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.
The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.
Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.
All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.
I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together.
War is the continuation of politics by other means.
A conqueror is always a lover of peace.
War is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter.
War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
The more a general is accustomed to place heavy demands on his soldiers, the more he can depend on their response.
Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.
It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.
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.
Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.
Politics is the womb in which war develops.
To secure peace is to prepare for war.
