The knowledge of higher leadership can only be acquired by the study of military history and actual experience. There are no hard and fast rules; everything depends on the plans of the general, the condition of the troops, the season of the year, and a thousand other circumstances, which have the effect that no one case will ever resemble another.

I made all my generals out of mud.

A commander in chief ought to say to himself several times a day: If the enemy should appear on my front, on my right, on my left, what would I do? And if the question finds him uncertain, he is not well placed, he is not as he should be, and he should remedy it.

It is often in the audacity, in the steadfastness, of the general that the safety and the conservation of his men is found.

The best generals are those who have served in the artillery.

I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.