Quotes About Warfare

Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain

If our soldiers are not overburdened with money, it is not because they have a distaste for riches; if their lives are not unduly long, it is not because they are disinclined to longevity.

In war one must lean on an obstacle in order to overcome it.

If I wish to engage, then the enemy, for all his high ramparts and deep moat, cannot avoid engagement; I attack that which he is obliged to rescue.

Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only be obtained from other men.

We cannot know what prayer is for until we know that life is war.

If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.

If the enemy leaves a door open, you must rush in.

By push of bayonets, no firing until you see the whites in their eyes!

I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.

Wars are never fought for one reason," he said. "They are fought for dozens of reasons, in a muddle.

On both difficult and easy terrain, you must know the 'tenable' and 'fatal' ground. Occupy tenable ground and attack on fatal ground.

Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.

I have fought sixty battles, and I have learnt nothing which I did not know at the beginning.

All war is deception.

War is the science of destruction.

The army consists of the first infantry division and eight million replacements.

Modern politics is civil war carried on by other means.

Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore, in addition to causing horrendous damage, they prove ultimately futile.

The transition from the defensive to the offensive is one of the most delicate operations in war.

The German air offensives against British cities in World Wars I and II not only failed to coerce the United Kingdom to surrender, but Germany also lost both wars.

I will stand off the forces of the entire country here... and die a resplendent death.

The essence of war is fire, famine, and pestilence. They contribute to its outbreak; they are among its weapons; they become its consequences.

There is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.