“No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. Not when the enemy is me.”
This includes a common paraphrase of a statement which originates with military strategist Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke: "No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force."
Vorkosigan Saga, Cetaganda (1996)
“No plan of battle survives contact with the enemy, and time is the ultimate opponent.”
Source: Rule 34 (2011), Chapter 1, “Liz: Red Pill, Blue Pill” (p. 16)
“No business plan survives its first contact with customers.”
Source: The Startup Owner’s Manual (2012), p. 53.
Source: Whispers Under Ground (2012), Chapter 25, “Ladbroke Grove” (p. 262)
“No plan survives the first encounter with your enemy, so why bother to make one?”
Source: The Goblin Quest Series, Goblin Hero (2007), Chapter 13 (p. 243)
“The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.”
Quoted in "How Wars End: Eye-witness Accounts of the Fall of Berlin" - by Vladimir Sevruk - History - 1974 - Page 27.
The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC (26 March 2009)
In response to Michael Steele's defense of his various gaffes as "strategic", during which he mixed several metaphors.
