“Where execution is dominant, as it is in the individual events of a war whether great or small, then intellectual factors are reduced to a minimum.”

“Not that chance dominated events in the early Solar System, for scientific determinism was also functioning. But chance is an essential factor in all evolutionary events, and the birth and development of our planetary system were not exceptions.”

“If there is a war to be fought, we don’t consider cost one of the factors in deciding whether or not to fight.”

“Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded. Thy are barred from the latter functions by a great principle in free government, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of enacting laws.”

“The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.”

“Suddenly summoned to witness something great and horrendous, we keep fighting not to reduce it to our own smallness.”