Quotes About Strategy

In life, the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what game you're playing

Turner was a lousy fighter, an inept swordsman, and most of the people he tried to kill didn't die by his hand. His sole strength was his superior brain. He became a leader of men because he had developed his mind by reading, which happened to be illegal. Coincidence?

Survival and victory were simple questions of strength, cunning, and will.

But they were masters of the mind game.

Those in power are those willing to do what it takes to gain power. While the context varies, depending on the region, the rule itself is inviolable.

the chairman of the Joint Chiefs; and a wild card he hadn't seen in years—TJ Burton, the head of FEMA.

You play the percentages in this game. If you try to plan for every lightning strike and shark attack you just end up paralyzed.

CIA HEADQUARTERS LANGLEY, VIRGINIA USA

If you're attacking, you don't get as tired as when you're chasing.

Knowledge only equates to power if you can figure out what to do with it.

So the holy elders," I added, "claim that the best strategy to cope with troublesome logismoi is simply to ignore them." "Precisely. Our first defense against destructive logismoi is complete indifference. This is the healthiest and most productive method to head them off right at their inception. Ignore them completely. Never open up a dialogue with these intruders. Do not interact with them either out of curiosity or out of overconfidence.

Most ambassadors would be surprised to learn that some of the staff messages that are proposed to them for authorization to transmit were received from the ST almost verbatim in the form which his "staff " have given him to send back to Washington. This is a useful device for the ST because it gets a message of unquestioned authority from the ambassador into the Department of State and usually into Defense via attach channels.

Inside the opponent's 45-yard line, facing anything less than fourth and eight, teams are better off going for it than punting. Inside the opponent's 33-yard line, they are better off going for it on anything less than fourth and 11.* Regardless of field position, on anything less than fourth and five, teams are always better off going for it.

I never cheat. I practice Gamesmanship - the art of winning games without actually cheating.

Trust me, you can't play the game if you don't know the rules. And if you don't know the rules, someone's bound to get hurt.

The shortest and best way of making your fortune is to let people clearly see that it is their interest to promote yours.

A man who has schemed for some time can no longer do without it; all other ways of living are to him dull and insipid.

The clemency of Princes is often but policy to win the affections of the people.

There are no accidents so unlucky but the prudent may draw some advantage from them.

Those who have the most cunning affect all their lives to condemn cunning; that they may make use of it on some great occasion, and to some great end.

With proper and prudent recognition of their limited war potential, the British hoped to avoid a frontal attack on the Continent. They preferred a roundabout way to victory, having convinced themselves that German power could be worn down by attrition to the point of collapse, whereupon "the Anglo-American forces in the United Kingdom could perform a triumphal march from the Channel to Berlin with no more than a few snipers' bullets to annoy them.

There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is: 'To use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum time.

When Philip of Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great, was told that a certain city in his army's path was impregnable, he asked: "Is there not a pathway to it wide enough for an ass laden with gold?" It was the fate of Vidkun Quisling to be nothing but an ass.

Ladislas Farago