The Virtues of War

A cavalryman's horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be alowed to know this.

A horse must be a bit mad to be a good cavalry mount, and its rider must be completely so.

This man has conquered the world! What have you done?" The philosopher replied without an instant's hesitation, "I have conquered the need to conquer the world.

Always attack. Even in defense, attack. The attacking arm possesses the initiative and thus commands the action. To attack makes men brave; to defend makes them timorous.

Fame Imperishable and glory that will never die -- that is what we march for!

Warfare is theatre, I have said, and the essence of theatre is aritifce. What we show, we will not do. What we don't show, we will do.

When deliberating, think in campaigns and not battles; in wars and not campaigns; in ultimate conquest and not wars.

Every virtue that reaches the exaggeration, is becoming a defect

From that day, I vowed never to squander a moment's care over the good opinion of others. May they rot in hell. You have heard of my abstemiousness in matters of food and sex. Here is why: I punished myself. If I caught my thoughts straying to another's opinion of me, I sent myself to bed without supper. As for women, I likewise permitted myself none. I missed no few meals, and no small pleasure, before I brought this vice under control.

A cavalryman's horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be allowed to know this.

He's a sturdy fellow, bald as a hen's egg, and like all engineers, practical as a pensioner.

The Band advances to the cadence of the flute, and has no call for retreat. Its code is Stand and Die.

Why does Zeus send prodigies to earth? For the same reason he makes a comet streak across the sky. To show not what has been done, but what can be.

I have always been a soldier. I have known no other life. The calling of arms, I have followed from boyhood. I have never sought another. I have known lovers, sired offspring, competed in games, and committed outrages when drunk. I have vanquished empires, yoked continents, been crowned as an immortal before gods and men. But always I have been a soldier.

You have asked, Itanes, if I feel fear. I answer, I may not. The soldier in the line is permitted to feel terror; the commander never. Too much depends upon him - the lives of his mates, the fate of the action. He cannot allow himself the luxury of fear. I eat mine, as a lion devours a kid. I consume it by my will to glory and my obligation to the corps.

Those who do not understand war believe it contention between armies, friend against foe. No. Rather friend and foe duel as one against an unseen antagonist, whose name is Fear, and seek, even entwined in death, to mount to that promontory whose ensign is honor.

Men feared even the shade of Alexander, lest they encounter him again beneath the earth, for surely in that world, too, none would surpass him.

The ordeal of command consists in this: that one makes decisions of fatal consequence based on ludicrously inadequate intelligence.

Achilles is no ancestor, nine hundred years gone. He strides here, this instant, in my heart.

swear to you, friends, by all the gods, he seems to me happier in doing us kindnesses than in enriching himself.

the ordeal had been rendered tolerable, now that I could tell myself it was my own idea.

My father used to say that attacking an enemy who outnumbers you is like wrestling with a bear: You have to get your dagger into his heart before the beast crushes you with his paws.