Quotes About Tactics

Let's go over a little astrography. Geography is the mother of strategy, they say.

Miles added it to his life's lessons list. Call it Rule 27B. Never make key tactical decisions while having electro-convulsive seizures.

Haroche was crouched to the left of his old comconsole desk, just levering the vent grille out of the wall. In the opened flimsie-folder on the floor by his side lay another fiber filter. Miles laid a small bet with himself that they would find a disemboweled grille awaiting Haroche's return in one of the briefing rooms on a direct line between Illyan's old office and this one. A quick switch, very cool. You think fast, General. But this time I had a head start.

Ivan didn't want to know. "You play games like that with the big boys, you'd better make damn sure you win, Miles says. Rule One. And there is no Rule Two.

As she had stated earlier, he wasn't an animal. Well, he was, but there was a side of him that was more than instinct as well. There was the strategist, and soon, there would be the seducer. No battle was won purely with a show of strength, he told himself as he left her room, closing the door quietly behind him. Every battle won was done so with the right strategy as well as the proper weapons. He simply had to determine when and where to begin the first skirmish.

A true gentleman is at a disadvantage in dealing with women. Women are realists, and their tactics are realistic, so no man should be a gentleman where women are concerned unless the women are very, very old or very, very young. Women admire gentlemen, and sleep with cads.

way among the rocks. Occasionally he was exposed, but there were no more shots. Either he was unseen, and they were deliberately allowing him to get to the cabin, or they had moved out to try to cross farther up, away from his line of fire, and so come down behind

If you play games with men," he replied, "you'll play by men's rules.

A move well planned is a move half-done, and I tried to think through every phase. We

reasoning now. I plan to get them to sit down

An enemy has to be defeated in battle, but an adversary's different. You must outwit an adversary.

While Rockefeller communicated with his subordinates in genteel fashion, discussing muscular tactics with unctuous euphemisms, his colleagues were less restrained and gloried in their brutal shenanigans.

While they thought they were leading me into a trap, I let them go into the trap themselves.

Yet these were random efforts, not a coordinated counterattack.

As far as Chess, Carley Co.'s territory is concerned, every effort is being made to dislodge Rice.

To ensure that he won, he submitted to games only where he could dictate the rules.

Rogers's strategy paid off as far as the Buffalo imbroglio was concerned.)

When playing checkers or chess, he showed exceptional caution, studying each move at length, working out every possible countermove in his head. "I'll move just as soon as I get it figured out," he told opponents who tried to rush him. "You don't think I'm playing to get beaten, do you?"12 To ensure that he won, he submitted to games only where he could dictate the rules.

If Madison in the 1780s was a philosopher king, Madison in the 1790s was a formidable practicing politician, and so skillful at cutting deals that he was dubbed the big knife.

All along, he insisted, he knew it would fail and had gone along simply as a tactical maneuver.

I'd learned a few lessons about negotiating: You're unlikely to ever get all you want; you'll probably get more of what you want if you don't issue ultimatums and leave your adversary room to maneuver; you shouldn't back your adversary into a corner, embarrass him, or humiliate him; and sometimes the easiest way to get some things done is for the top people to do them alone and in private.

Morality in the long run aligned with strategy.

I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.

As a rule of thumb, it was always safer if the Commander-in-Chief formulated a risky plan.