Courage, above all things, is the first quality of a warrior.
Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.
Politics is the womb in which war develops.
Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
A conqueror is always a lover of peace.
Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.
All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.
It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.
If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.
Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.
Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.
War is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter.
Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.
I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together.
War is the continuation of politics by other means.