Quotes About Strategy

The tactic seemed to work, so he stuck to the same theme for the next few days, but there was only so much cryptography he could teach before it started squeezing out everything else.

Scared of Farweather. Scared of whether or not my gravity trick was going to work if there was another living body in the way of it, or whether Farweather would have better control—or whether the ship itself would intervene with some kind of failsafe to protect her. And I was scared as well of what I might do if my plan worked and I actually did get the upper hand

Diplomacy amounts to nothing; it all comes down to blood and iron in the end." "Don't misquote Bismark at me.

He plays the white and black pieces both, a double game that defies all understanding.

Quick, ruthless, but not prone to long-term strategy-that was the Charter Trade Company.

He had absolutely no objection to using his partner's brooding charisma as a weapon.

Two can play at Salisbury's game.

A plan was forming in her mind. She didn't look at the idea too closely, lest she startle it away.

His face gives nothing away; Valens plays his games on a dozen levels.

Elena might think she was the saltspider at the center of the web, but Lesa couldn't allow her to recognize all the layers of machinations here.

The Mebd was playing a game. If she was breathing, she was playing games.

Sometimes a thing can be true, and not for immediate sharing. That was, Connla had assured me more than once, how diplomacy worked.

Plans. I thought about plans. Plants and plants.

There's something about Richard that's hard to get used to, when you've been dealing with the likes of Valens, and I don't know how to describe it. They both delight in tricking people, in holding all the cards.

Coincidence was possible. But what was much more likely was enemy action.

A snake never shares what she knows unless it serves her own purposes.

As an old crew chief of mine used to point out, you might be dead long before the problem you didn't have the resources to fix right now became a critical need, so why waste more resources worrying about it?

I was losing this round, and I neded to disengage without seming like I was running away.

The way to tame a wild thing is not to pursue it, but to make it pursue you. This is the way Merlins have always been brought to heel.

Oxford smiled and Kit still knew him well enough to read the pleasure of a chess player who has successfully anticipated his opponent.

It was no other than he had expected, but he could play out the game.

Alienor glanced across at the girls who were still oblivious of their fate as they sat over their game of chess. They had been born to be pieces on a board, but whether pawns or queens depended on the skill with which they played the game, and how clever their opponents were.

That you should choose your battles wisely. You cannot fight everything and win. Sometimes the price of losing is beyond what you can afford to pay, but that applies to winning as well.

Because to outwit your rivals, first you had to know their ways and how to play their games.