Quotes About Strategy

Rockefeller never passed up a chance to exploit a legitimate advantage against his beleaguered rivals.

Instead, statesmanlike, he applied himself to general policy and monitored the performance of lieutenants, who sent him copious reports about their activities

Rockefeller had positioned himself exactly where he wished to be—poised to profit from either surplus or scarcity and all but immune to the vagaries of the marketplace.

During the war he had learned that it was better to let power seek him rather than to pursue it; a good general waited to be summoned by his superiors. p610

When they didn't flinch, Rockefeller launched an all-out attack.

Yet Rockefeller didn't apply this pressure lightly and preferred patience and reason—if possible—to terror.

Johnson tried to persuade Rockefeller that these skills would serve him well in golf.

Segundo consta, foi Putnam que teria dado a seguinte instrução a seus homens, em Bunker Hill: "Não atirem antes de verem o branco dos olhos deles. E aí atirem baixo.

Undeterred by these extreme gyrations, both Rockefeller and Andrews wanted to borrow heavily and expand, while Clark favored a more circumspect approach.

Hamilton sketched out this phantom force in microscopic detail, producing comprehensive charts for regiments, battalions, and companies. In a typical passage, Hamilton was to write, "A company is subdivided equally into two platoons, a platoon into two sections and a section into two squads, a squad consisting of four files of three or six files of two."89 He assigned ranks to officers, set up recruiting stations, stocked arsenals with ammunition, and drew up numerous regulations.

Machiavellian

a way of building tension and softening up the parties.

With finely honed political instincts, George Clinton saw that Hamilton was overreaching, and he secretly aided King's candidacy in order to drive a wedge between the Schuylers and the Livingstons. When New York picked its second senator on July 16, 1789, Rufus King came out on top. Just as Clinton suspected, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston was irate and gradually moved into the governor's camp.

We will let it simmer" was a saying John employed throughout his business career.

Standard merely had to dump oil at cost to stamp out competitors.

Rathbun's strategy followed Hubbard's dictate that the purpose of a lawsuit is "to harass and discourage rather than win.

Keeping your mouth shut is a devastating weapon. Your silence will make your opponent want to babble.

This was like July 13th, 1943, the pivotal day of the Battle of the Kursk. We were like Alexander Vasilevsky, the Soviet general. If we attacked now, this minute, we had to keep on and on attacking until the enemy was run off his feet and the war was won. If we bogged down or paused for breath even for a second, we would be overrun again.

One day it seemed like a good idea, the next day it didn't. That kind of thing happened all the time, way back when, because strategy was fluid. Or because nobody had the faintest idea what they were doing.

Webster lapsed into silence. Started thinking hard. He was a smart enough bureaucrat to know if you can't beat them, you join them. You force yourself to think like they think.

Don't aim for the middle of the body, which is easier to defend; aim high for the head or low for the knees.

Revising objectives is smart because it stops you throwing good money after bad.

Street-fighting's first rule: there are no rules.

The smart money brings a gun to a knife fight. Reacher brought a hydrogen bomb.