Thucydides Quotes
The wide difference between the two characters, the slowness and want of energy of the Spartans as contrasted with the dash and enterprise of their opponents, proved of the greatest service, especially to a maritime empire like Athens. Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans, who were most like the Athenians in character, and also most successful in combating them.
He was a strong believer in surprise attack and preemption.
Referring to the Joint Committee for the Conduct of the War—the unit of Congress that scrutinized and often tried to micro-mange Abraham Lincoln's efforts:
While this principle is usually true, the irony is that it did not hold for the Germans in WWII. Towards the end of the war, they had developed the first jet planes which in combat were far superior to anything the allies could contest them with. In every battle they shot down many more allied plans than they lost. However they had relatively few as allied bombers had destroyed key factories and already killed most of the German experienced pilots. Also the fuel facilities were crippled. So even though the German jets were technologically superior, they were so outnumbered that they were not strategicappy successful.
Thucydides (/θjuːˈsɪdɪdiːz/; Ancient Greek: Θουκυδίδης Thoukūdídēs [tʰuːkyːdídɛːs]; c. 460 – c. 400 BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the deities, as outlined in his introduction to his work.