The secret of great battles consists in knowing how to deploy and concentrate at the right time.

It is not that addresses at the opening of a battle make the soldiers brave. The old veterans scarcely hear them, and recruits forget them at the first boom of the cannon. Their usefulness lies in their effect on the course of the campaign, in neutralizing rumors and false reports, in maintaining a good spirit in the camp, and in furnishing matter for camp-fire talk. The printed order of the day should fulfill these different ends.

The art of war consists in bringing to bear with an inferior army a superiority of force at the point at which one attacks or is attacked.

The fate of a Nation may sometimes depend upon the position of a fortress.

In a battle, as in a siege, the art consists in concentrating very heavy fire on a particular point. The line of battle once established, the one who has the ability to concentrate an unlooked for mass of artillery suddenly and unexpectedly on one of these points is sure to carry the day.

War is composed of nothing but accidents...there is but one favorable moment, the great art is to seize it.