To Secure Peace Is To Prepare For

In War, While Everything Is Simple, Even The Simplest Thing Is Difficult. Difficulties Accumulate And Produce Frictions Which No One Can Comprehend Who Has Not Seen War.

If We Consider The Actual Basis Of This Information [i.e., Intelligence], How Unreliable And Transient It Is, We Soon Realize That War Is A Flimsy Structure That Can Easily Collapse And Bury Us In Its Ruins. ... Many Intelligence Reports In War Are Contradictory; Even More Are False, And Most Are Uncertain. This Is True Of All Intelligence But Even More So In The Heat Of Battle, Where Such Reports Tend To Contradict And Cancel Each Other Out. In Short, Most Intelligence Is False, And The Effect Of Fear Is To Multiply Lies And Inaccuracies.

Any Complex Activity, If It Is To Be Carried On With Any Degree Of Virtuosity, Calls For Appropriate Gifts Of Intellect And Temperament. If They Are Outstanding And Reveal Themselves In Exceptional Achievements, Their Possessor Is Called A 'genius'.

Savage Peoples Are Ruled By Passion, Civilized Peoples By The Mind. The Difference Lies Not In The Respective Natures Of Savagery And Civilization, But In Their Attendant Circumstances, Institutions, And So Forth. The Difference, Therefore, Does Not Operate In Every Sense, But It Does In Most Of Them. Even The Most Civilized Peoples, In Short, Can Be Fired With Passionate Hatred For Each Other.

It Should Be Noted That The Seeds Of Wisdom That Are To Bear Fruit In The Intellect Are Sown Less By Critical Studies And Learned Monographs Than By Insights, Broad Impressions, And Flashes Of Intuition.