Planning Quotes

Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow. What I have just said applies to our strength as a single country.

My life has been largely spent in affairs that required organization. But organization itself, necessary as it is, is never sufficient to win a battle.

Preparing for battle, plans were essential. But once the battle was joined, plans were useless.

The very definition of "emergency" is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning.

A plan of campaign should anticipate everything which the enemy can do, and contain within itself the means of thwarting him.

Nothing is more important in war than unity in command. When, therefore, you are carrying on hostilities against a single power only, you should have but one army acting on one line and led by one commander.

It is contrary to the usages of war to cause your parks or heavy artillery to enter a defile, the opposite extremity of which is not in your possession; since, in the event of a retreat". they will embarrass you and be lost. They ought to be left in position, under a suitable escort, until yoU have made yourself master of thetermination of the defile.

Nothing is more rash or more opposed to the principles of war than a flank march in presence of an army in position, especially when that army occupies heights at the foot of which you must defile.

A military maxim, which ought never to be neglected, is to assemble your cantonments at the point which is most remote and best sheltered from the enemy, especially when he makes his appearance unexpectedly. You will then have time to unite the whole army before he can attack you.

Plans of campaign may be infinitely modified according to the circumstances, the genius of the commander, the quality of the troops and the topography of the theater of war.

There is no man more pusillanimous than I when I am planning a campaign. I purposely exaggerate all the dangers and all the calamities that the circumstances make possible. I am in a thoroughly painful state of agitation. This does not keep me from looking quite serene in front of my entourage; I am like an unmarried girl laboring with child. Once I have made up my mind, everything is forgotten except what leads to success.

Yes, we are on our way back - not just by pure chance, my friends, not just by a turn of the wheel, of the cycle. We are coming back more soundly than ever before because we are planning it that way. Don't let anybody tell you differently.

Those who plan do better than those who do not plan, even should they rarely stick to their plan.

Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.

By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities.

Strategy is figuring out what not to do.

Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.