Historians are apt to judge war ministers less by the victories achieved under their direction than by the political results which flowed from them. Judged by that standard, I am not sure that I shall be held to have done very well.
War, to sane men at the present day, begins to look like an epidemic insanity, breaking out here and there like the cholera or influenza, infecting men's brains instead of their bowels.
In war, the general alone can judge of certain arrangements. It depends on him alone to conquer difficulties by his own superior talents and resolution.
War is only a sort of dramatic representation, a sort of dramatic symbol of a thousand forms of duty. I fancy that it is just as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shooting at you.
And as we are - the world is. That is, if we are greedy, envious, competitive, our society will be competitive, envious, greedy, which brings misery and war. The State is what we are.
My ability to persuade my wife to marry me was quite my most brilliant achievement ... Of course, it would have been impossible for any ordinary man to have got through what I had to go through in peace and war without the devoted aid of what we call, in England, one's better half.
Having lost the last war, they are currently enjoying a "Wirtschaftswunder," which can be briefly translated as "The best way to own a Mercedes is to build one."
When one treats people with benevolence, justice and righteousness, and reposes confidence in them, the army will be united in mind and all will be happy to serve their leaders.