
Source: The Art of War, Chapter VIII · Variations and Adaptability
From "The Science of Victory," 1796.
Source: The Art of War, Chapter VIII · Variations and Adaptability
Source: Calculated Risk (1950), p. 1
Context: A soldier's life in combat is an endless series of decisions that mean success or failure, and perhaps life or death for himself or his comrades. The rifleman crawling through the rubble of a bombed-out street must decide on the best moment to escape enemy fire as he dodges from one doorway to the next. He must take a chance. The general seeking to break an enemy defense line and destroy his forces must decide just when and how to strike and precisely to what extent he dare weaken one sector of his front in order to mass overpowering strength at the main point of attack. He, too, must take a chance, although, in the stilted phraseology of military communiqués, he calls it a "calculated risk".
A Single Spark Can Start A Prairie Fire https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_6.htm (1930)
He later wrote the similar quote "When guerrillas engage a stronger enemy, they withdraw when he advances; harass him when he stops; strike him when he is weary; pursue him when he withdraws." On Guerrilla Warfare https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1937/guerrilla-warfare/ch01.htm (1937), Chapter 1 - "What Is Guerrilla Warfare?"
“How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.”
Source: Persuasion
“How many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn't see?”
Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Blowin' in the Wind
Source: Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902, p. 111
Goninan in Part One: The Hidden People, "Border Spirit" p. 336
The Little Country (1991)