Terry Pratchett Quotes

Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans, the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces, the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field, and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.

The military weapon is but one of the means that serve the purposes of war: one out of the assortment which grand strategy can employ.

We have long possessed the art of war and the science of war, which have been evolved in the minutest detail.

What we have to remember is we want to utilize the tremendous intellect that we have in the military to win wars. I've talked to a lot of the generals, a lot of our advanced people. And believe me, if we gave them the mission, which is what the commander-in-chief does, they would be able to carry it out.

Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.

Strategy is the most important department of the art of war, and strategical skill is the highest and rarest function of military genius.

He that makes war without many mistakes has not made war very long.

In tactics, action is the governing rule of war.

Generals who save troops for the next day are always beaten.

Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory: He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.

The secret of war lies in the communications.

The success of our surprise attack on Pearl Harbor will prove to be the Waterloo of the war to follow. For this reason the Imperial Navy is massing the cream of its strength in ships and planes to assure success.

In war, numbers alone confer no advantage. Do not advance relying on sheer military power.

In war the only sure defense is offense, and the efficiency of the offense depends on the warlike souls of those conducting it.

It is the rule in war, if ten times the enemy's strength, surround them; if five times, attack them; if double, be able to divide them; if equal, engage them; if fewer, defend against them; if weaker, be able to avoid them.

You can have all the advanced war methods you want, but, after all, nobody has ever invented a war that you don't have to have somebody in the guise of soldiers to stop the bullets.

The men in Vietnam weren't allowed to fight the war with any kind of concern to win by the government. It was like a war of attrition.

Surprise becomes effective when we suddenly face the enemy at one point with far more troops than he expected. This type of numerical superiority is quite distinct from numerical superiority in general: it is the most powerful medium in the art of war.

The professional military mind is by necessity an inferior and unimaginative mind; no man of high intellectual quality would willingly imprison his gifts in such a calling.

Artillery is the god of war.

Most wars are not won in a single battle.

Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. The difficulties accumulate and end by producing a kind of friction that is inconceivable unless one has experienced war. ... Countless minor incidents - the kind you can never really foresee - combine to lower the general level of performance, so that one always falls short of the intended goal.

Dig trenches? With our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made.

For Americans war is almost all of the time a nuisance, and military skill is a luxury like Mah-Jongg. But when the issue is brought home to them, war becomes as important, for the necessary period, as business or sport. And it is hard to decide which is likely to be the more ominous for the Axis -- an American decision that this is sport, or that it is business.