In a war, to win a victory or suffer a defeat are common things. The essential is that we must win final victory. We must help all officers and men and the people to bear that firmly in mind so that they will not be self-complacent when winning and disappointed when losing, but instead will always make utmost efforts to overcome difficulties and hardships and advance towards final victory.

The only way anyone ever won a war, is to make the enemy hurt so bad that he can't stand it any more.

War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that the enemy too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.

Wars are fought to gain a certain objective. War itself is not the objective; victory is not the objective; you fight to remove the obstruction that comes in the way of your objective. If you let victory become the end in itself then you've gone astray and forgotten what you were originally fighting about.

Once war is forced upon us, there is no alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War’s very object is victory-not prolonged indecision.

War: first, one hopes to win;
then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering;
in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.

As any military strategist knows, it's impossible to win a defensive warfare. Defensive war is doomed to defeat. To win a war, you have to launch an attack. You have to go on the offensive. You have to attack the enemy. You have to set him back on his heels. You have to take the initiative. You have to be positive. You have to attack and invade and overpower. You can't just sit there and try to ward him off while he attacks and invades, or he'll finally overpower you.

The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it.

A war is essentially the most dreadful and ruthless thing imaginable, therefore one's object should be so to conduct it as to bring it to an end at the earliest possible moment, and to this end one should give the enemy a distaste for it as quickly as one can; and it is more humane if I do this by burning down houses than by shooting down quite innocent soldiers.

To win a war, one must try and kill as many men and destroy as much property as you can. If you can get mechanical machines to do this, then you are saving lives at the outset.

War is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit.

War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war there is no substitute for victory.

War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.

It's not a matter of whether the war is not real, or if it is, Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact.