“Avoid self-righteousness like the devil- nothing is so self-blinding.”

The most effective indirect approach is one that lures or startles the opponent into a false move – so that, as in ju-jitsu, his own effort is turned into the lever of his overthrow.

As has happened so often in history, victory had bred a complacency and fostered an orthodoxy which led to defeat in the next war.

The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.

The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men.

Air forces offered the possibility of striking a the enemy’s economic and moral centres without having first to achieve ‘the destruction of the enemy’s main forces on the battlefield’. Air-power might attain a direct end by indirect means – hopping over opposition instead of overthrowing it.

While hitting one must guard … In order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.

For the spread and endurance of an idea the originator is dependent on the self-development of the receivers and transmitters.

In reality, it si more fruitful to wound than to kill. While the dead man lies still, counting only one man less, the wounded man is a progressive drain upon his side.

While there are many causes for which a state goes to war, its fundamental object can be epitomized as that of ensuring the continuance of its policy – in face of the determination of the opposing state to pursue a contrary policy. In the human will lies the source and mainspring of conflict.

Inflict the least possible permanent injury, for the enemy of to-day is the customer of the morrow and the ally of the future

Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. But helplessness induces hopelessness.

A modern state is such a complex and interdependent fabric that it offers a target highly sensitive to a sudden and overwhelming blow from the air.

It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off … since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.

If you want peace, understand war.

In should be the duty of every soldier to reflect on the experiences of the past, in the endeavor to discover improvements, in his particular sphere of action, which are practicable in the immediate future.

War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it.

The mask was a thing on it’s own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness.

What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.

Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.

Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays

Nationalism has two fatal charms for its devotees: It presupposes local self-sufficiency, which is a pleasant and desirable condition, and it suggests, very subtly, a certain personal superiority by reason of one’s belonging to a place which is definable and familiar, as against a place that is strange, remote.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

I think that feeling that if one believed absolutely in any cause, then one must have the confidence, the self-certainty, to go through with that particular course of action.

Fortunately, however, we no longer have to argue that self -love is not only necessary and good but that it also is a prerequisite for loving others.