Quotes About Tactics

I know he's a good general, but is he lucky?

It is only by prudence, wisdom, and dexterity, that great ends are attained and obstacles overcome. Without these qualities nothing succeeds.

We frustrate many designs against us by pretending not to see them.

A general must be a charlatan.

A commander in chief ought to say to himself several times a day: If the enemy should appear on my front, on my right, on my left, what would I do? And if the question finds him uncertain, he is not well placed, he is not as he should be, and he should remedy it.

The nature of strategy consists of always having, even with a weaker army, more forces at the point of attack or at the point where one is being attacked than the enemy.

When your opponent is making a mistake, do nothing to interfere.

The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies.

Get there first with the most men.

We must take the long view—every defeat is a victory in a war of attrition.

We learned that indecision is a decision, that inaction has a cost all its own. Good commanders act and create opportunities. Great commanders ruthlessly exploit those opportunities

Nonviolence is a good policy when the conditions permit.

Know your enemy — and learn about his favorite sport.

He knew when to compromise. Yet he never compromised his principles. He was a militant. Yet a militant who knew how to plan, assess concrete situations and emerge with rational solutions to problems.

The government had always utilized divide-and-rule tactics when dealing with Africans and depended on the strength of ethnic divisions among the people. But in places like Alexandra, these differences were being erased.

This created a sense of solidarity, which caused great concern among the white authorities. The government had always utilized divide-and-rule tactics when dealing with Africans and depended on the strength of ethnic divisions among the people. But in places like Alexandra, these differences were being erased.

Decisions should not be taken out of pride or embarrassment, but out of pure strategy.

With the Regional Office breathing down her neck... Corinne had wanted to keep the Drury case low-key, uncontroversial. since Craig's disappearance had set he alarm bells off, Anna was willing to be she'd change tactics, make a noisy show of taking command of the situation. For a while the name of the game at Guadalupe Mountains would be Cover Your Ass.

Politics and war are remarkably similar situations.

Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.

Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.

A prince should therefore have no other aim or thought, nor take up any other thing for his study, but war and its organization and discipline, for that is the only art that is necessary to one who commands.

War is just when it is necessary arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms.