Tactical Advantage Quotes

If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.

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

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

The enemy advances, we retreat. The enemy camps, we harass. Th enemy tires, we attack. The enemy retreats, we pursue.

Never try to take a fortified hill, especially if the Army on top is bigger than you are.

He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.

It was not important how many enemies there are, but where the enemy is

Every battle is won before it is fought.

He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.

It is sufficient to estimate the enemy situation correctly and to concentrate your strength to capture him. There is no more to it than this. He who lacks foresight and underestimates his enemy will surely be captured by him.

In general, our generals were out-generalled.

Armament is an important factor in war but not the decisive factor .... Man, not material, forms the decisive factor.

A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack.

It is fine that General MacArthur is arrogant and stubborn. An arrogant and stubborn enemy is easier to defeat.

In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one.

Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.

You want to win the wars you fight. That’s why you have to pick your wars carefully.

What enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge.

The Spartans do not inquire how many the enemy are, but where they are.

The guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win.

One cannot think that blind bravery gives victory over the enemy.

The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.

In war everything is uncertain, and calculations have to be made with variable quantities …. all military action is intertwined with psychological forces and effects.

I give it as my fixed opinion, that but for our graduated cadets, the war between the United States and Mexico might, and probably would have lasted some four or five years, with, in its first half, more defeats than victories falling to our share; whereas, in less than two campaigns, we conquered a great country and a peace without the loss of a single battle or skirmish.

Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day. This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy's condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity.