Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.

Play off everyone against each other so that you have more avenues of action open to you.

In cases of defense, it is best to weigh the enemy more than he seems.

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.

Judge your enemy based upon capabilities, not intent, you have to look at the enemy and really almost make a worst case call every time.

If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle

Know the enemy and know yourself.

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 whole art of war consists of guessing at what is on the other side of the hill.

I do not believe that diplomacy equals weakness…. If you are going to use force you better make sure that it is effective.

The Commonwealth of Venice in their armoury have this inscription, "Happy is that city which in time of peace thinks of war.

They have the troops; we only have the arguments.

A fatal mistake in war is to underrate the strength, feeling and resources of an enemy.

The Artillery Barrage: The last reasoning of Kings.

Anyone who clings to the historically untrue and thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never solves anything, I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The Ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more disputes in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.

Military campaigns are inseparable from politics.

In any competitive environment, whether you're in sales or marketing or whatever it is, you have to know your competition, understand who they are, do intelligent analysis on them and then you have to know yourself - who you are and what you're capable of doing.

If you sit down with British officers or British senior NCOs, they understand the sweep of history. They know the history of British forces not just in Afghanistan but the history of British successful counter-insurgencies - Northern Ireland, Malaysia.

My philosophy is to make an offer that the other guy can't refuse, because he thinks there's no way he can't win.

What we can afford least is to define the problem of future war as we would like it to be and, by doing so, introduce into our defense vulnerabilities based on self-delusion.

To think about attacking is also to think about positioning.

Our nation's military is effective because it is nonpartisan, relies heavily on science and technology, and takes the world as it is, not as it wishes it to be.

My experience in decision-making has shown that patterns are tough to break. In the military, we study an opponent, looking for gaps, flaws, or weaknesses that can be exploited. Successful leaders at all levels in all disciplines conduct this kind of analysis.

If you have an opponent who is clearly better than you, then OK, you have something to analyse.

I don't know what is stronger or what is weaker.The whole language of strength and weaknesses is irrelevant,because when you use arms you do not use ballots, and public opinion is unimportant, and they shoot at their opponents.