Quotes about Force Comparison

David Lange

Our military forces are an arm of government, just like the Department of Social Welfare, although probably less able to inflict widespread harm

George Orwell

In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer.

Carl von Clausewitz

Every combat is the bloody and destructive measuring of the strength of forces, physical and moral; whoever at the close has the greatest amount of both left is the conqueror.

Sun Tzu

The art of using troops is this:
......When ten to the enemy's one, surround him;
......When five times his strength, attack him;
......If double his strength, divide him;
......If equally matched you may engage him;
......If weaker numerically, be capable of withdrawing;
......And if in all respects unequal, be capable of eluding him,
..........for a small force is but booty for one more powerful.

Zebulon Pike

There had so lately been a large force of Spanish cavalry at the village, which had made a great impression on the minds of the young men, as to their power, consequence, which my appearance with 20 infantry was by no means calculated to remove.

Helmut Schmidt

I think that the solution of the question of numerical superiority of Russian conventional forces has to be solved.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Tis a principle of war that when you can use the lightning, 'tis better than cannon.

Andrea M. Ghez

Gravity wins over all other known forces.

Koxinga

You Hollanders are conceited and senseless people; you will make yourselves unworthy of the mercy which I now offer; you will subject yourselves to the highest punishment by proudly opposing the great force I have brought with the mere handful of men which I am told you have in your Castle; you will obstinately persevere in this. Do you not wish to be wiser? Let your losses at least teach you, that your power here cannot be compared to a thousandth part of mine.

Koxinga had an overwhelmingly superior force, and wanted the Dutch to surrender and avoid bloodshed. The Dutch with their typical European colonial attitude, had great difficulty surrendering to “natives” even if outnumbered. Finally, the Dutch Commander agreed to surrender. Koxinga then established a Chinese Government on the Island and became a great hero of the Ming Dynasty. Note the graphic of the statue to him which is one of the very few Chinese memorial statues to a military hero showing him in action—very similar to European statues.

Sun Tzu

Other conditions being equal, if one force is hurled against another ten times its size, the result will be the flight of the former.

Hillary Clinton

We have fewer troops in Afghanistan than we had law enforcement [officers] at the Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Ma Hongkui

… one of my soldiers can handle three Communist soldiers

Shortly thereafter, Ma Hongkui, and his soldiers ran for their lives and barely escaped to Taiwan as the Communists took over all of the Chinese mainland.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The small force that it takes to launch a boat into the stream should not be confused with the force of the stream that carries it along: but this confusion appears in nearly all biographies.

Force Comparison Quotes