The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great

Seek the decisive battle. What good does it do us to win ten scraps of no consequence if we lose the one that counts? I want to fight battles that decide the fate of empires.

Yet not one tells me of the Lion’s Pass over the Amanus. Mark this, my young friend. Sear it into your soul with brands of iron: Never, never take anything for granted. Never believe you know, so that you cease to probe and query.

All tactics in conventional warfare seek to produce this single result: a breakthrough in the enemy line. This is as true of naval warfare as it is of war on land.

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

Let us conduct ourselves in such a fashion that all nations wish to be our friends and all fear to be our enemies.

Be conservative until the crucial moment. Then strike with all the violence you possess.

When men know they will be attacked, they feel fear; when they know they will attack, they feel strength.

Great commanders do not temper their measures to What Is; they bring forth What May Be.

Those who do not understand war believe it contention between armies, friend against foe. 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.

There are further items, Telamon taught, which have no place in the soldier’s kit. Hope is one. Thought for future or past. Hesitation.