donde las cosas están bien ordenadas no debería haber más que un mando supremo en un mismo teatro bélico, - Carl von Clausewitz

The invention of gunpowder and the constant improvement of firearms are enough in themselves to show that the advance of civilization has done nothing practical to alter or deflect the impulse to destroy the enemy, which is central to the very idea of war.

...only a fraction of book learning will seep into practical life anyhow; and the more foolish the theory, the less of it.

The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish by that test the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature.