Only Great And General Battles Can Produce

Boldness Governed By Superior Intellect Is The Mark Of A Hero.

Although Our Intellect Always Longs For Clarity And Certainty, Our Nature Often Finds Uncertainty Fascinating.

If We Consider The Actual Basis Of This Information [i.e., Intelligence], How Unreliable And Transient It Is, We Soon Realize That War Is A Flimsy Structure That Can Easily Collapse And Bury Us In Its Ruins. ... Many Intelligence Reports In War Are Contradictory; Even More Are False, And Most Are Uncertain. This Is True Of All Intelligence But Even More So In The Heat Of Battle, Where Such Reports Tend To Contradict And Cancel Each Other Out. In Short, Most Intelligence Is False, And The Effect Of Fear Is To Multiply Lies And Inaccuracies.

War Is An Act Of Violence Pushed To Its Utmost Bounds.

However Much Pains May Be Taken To Combine The Soldier And The Citizen In One And The Same Individual, Whatever May Be Done To Nationalize Wars, Never Will It Be Possible To Do Away With The Professionalism Of The Business; And If That Cannot Be Done, Then Those Who Belong To It Will Always Look Upon Themselves As A Kind Of Guild, In The Regulations, Laws, And Customs In Which The "spirit Of War" Finds Its Expression. It Would Be Very Wrong To Look Down Upon This Corporate Spirit, Or Esprit De Corps, Which May And Should Exist More Or Less In Every Army.