War Is The Province Of Chance. In

Boldness Will Be At A Disadvantage Only In An Encounter With Deliberate Caution, Which May Be Considered Bold In Its Own Right, And Is Certainly Just As Powerful And Effective; But Such Cases Are Rare.

After We Have Thought Out Everything Carefully In Advance And Have Sought And Found Without Prejudice The Most Plausible Plan, We Must Not Be Ready To Abandon It At The Slightest Provocation. Should This Certainty Be Lacking, We Must Tell Ourselves That Nothing Is Accomplished In Warfare Without Daring; That The Nature Of War Certainly Does Not Let Us See At All Times Where We Are Going; That What Is Probable Will Always Be Probable Though At The Moment It May Not Seem So; And Finally, That We Cannot Be Readily Ruined By A Single Error, If We Have Made Reasonable Preparations.

Given The Same Amount Of Intelligence, Timidity Will Do A Thousand Times More Damage Than Audacity

Our Knowledge Of Circumstances Has Increased, But Our Uncertainty, Instead Of Having Diminished, Has Only Increased. The Reason Of This Is, That We Do Not Gain All Our Experience At Once, But By Degrees; So Our Determinations Continue To Be Assailed Incessantly By Fresh Experience; And The Mind, If We May Use The Expression, Must Always Be Under Arms.

[the Cause Of Inaction In War] ... Is The Imperfection Of Human Perception And Judgment Which Is More Pronounced In War Than Anywhere Else. We Hardly Know Accurately Our Own Situation At Any Particular Moment While The Enemy's, Which Is Concealed From Us, Must Be Deduced From Very Little Evidence.