Mao Zedong Quotes

Divide our forces to arouse the masses, concentrate our forces to deal with the enemy. The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue. To extend stable base areas, employ the policy of advancing in waves; when pursued by a powerful enemy, employ the policy of circling around. Arouse the largest numbers of the masses in the shortest possible time and by the best possible methods.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

A government needs 100 soldiers for every guerilla it faces.

Blunders are an inescapable feature of war, because choice in military affairs lies generally between the bad and the worse.

When an aggressor force continually launches attacks from a particular base of operations, it is sound military strategy to take the flight to the enemy.

The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves; and this of course is to be effected by stratagem.

Armies are not only for offensives.

The science of booby-trapping has taken a good deal of the fun out of following hot on the enemy's heels.

We used to fight the LRA with only one dimensional force that only walks on foot, but now, we have got multiple forces to fight the rebels.

You cannot tell the enemy you're going to leave and expect the enemy to not - and expect to succeed. I mean, that's just a fundamental of warfare.

Fighting wars is not so much about killing people as it is about finding things out. The more you know, the more likely you are to win a battle.

The enemy would not have been in danger if Mr. Stanton had been in the field.

We realize that wars are never won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy

Balk the enemy's power; force him to reveal himself.

The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.

Never completely encircle your enemy. Leave him some escape, for he will fight even more desperately if trapped.

If the enemy has occupied them before you, do not follow him, but retreat and try to entice him away.

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.

With growing experience, all skillful commanders sought to profit by the power of the defensive, even when on the offensive.

General Giap was one of the most brilliant military strategists of our era, who in Dien Bien Phu was able to place missile launchers in remote, mountainous jungles, something the yankee and European military officers considered impossible.

It is often useful, if an enemy happens to see you, to pretend that you have not seen him. Or it may sometimes be useful to pretend that you have other men with you. I did this once in the Boer War when, having crept up a donga to look at a Boer fort, I was seen by the enemy, and they came out to capture me.

In Vietnam, we took a hill and defeated the enemy; then we retreated and let the enemy take over.

In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good.

There are two ways to fight the United States military: asymmetrically and stupid. Asymmetrically means you're going to try to avoid our strengths. In the 1991 Gulf War, it's like we called Saddam's army out into the schoolyard and beat up that army.

Just as sports teams recognize the potentially game-changing benefit of calling time-outs, failing to do so in matters of warfare is a surefire way to continue losing.