Quotes About Strategy

In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

Quelli che sono in grado di vincere una guerra possono raramente realizzare una pace conveniente, e quelli che possono realizzare una buona pace non hanno mai vinto una guerra.

It is one thing to see the forward path and another to be able to take it. But it is better to have an ambitious plan than none at all.

Una nación que intente prosperar subiendo impuestos es como un hombre con los pies en un cubo tratando de levantarse tirando del asa.

Politics is like waking up in the morning. You never know whose head you will find on the pillow.

Another and less elevated lesson she had learned in married life was that if she wheedled long enough and discreetly enough, she quite often got her own way in the end.

He had tried to catch her out, but always she thought ahead of him. Her wits moved quick. The snow leopard was sharper than the black bear.

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.

Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

He mobilised the English language and sent it into battle.

In war-time," I said, "truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

To try to be safe everywhere is to be strong nowhere.

In war and policy one should always try to put oneself in the position of what Bismarck called "the Other Man". The more fully and sympathetically a Minister can do this the better are his chances of being right. The more knowledge he possesses of the opposite point of view, the less puzzling it is to know what to do. But imagination without deep and full knowledge is a snare

Trying to maintain good relations with a Communist is like wooing a crocodile. You do not know whether to tickle it under the chin or to beat it over the head. When it opens its mouth you cannot tell whether it is trying to smile or preparing to eat you up!

In war all repetitions are perilous. You can do many things with impunity if you do not keep on doing them over and over again.

In contrast to this, it is not in our interest to abandon Constantinople to Russia and Bulgaria to Bolshevism. But even here it should be possible, with good intentions, to reach a solution which will avoid the worst and facilitate what we want. It will be easier to find a solution if Moscow is clear that nothing obliges us to accept an arrangement which is not satisfactory to us.

The truth deserves a bodyguard of lies.

It is not a question of one General being better than another, but of one General being better than two.