“Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.”
Source: The Guns of August
“Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.”
On Machiavelli (1827)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "Nothing is so useless as a general maxim." by Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay?
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay 101
British historian and Whig politician 1800–1859Related quotes
William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher
(1815–1899) British lawyer, judge and politician
Yarmouth v. France (1887), L. J. 57 Q. B. 9.
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
Peter F. Drucker
(1909–2005) American business consultant
“Words are like money; there is nothing so useless, unless when in actual use.”
Samuel Butler
(1835–1902) novelist
Thought and Word, viii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books
Peter F. Drucker
(1909–2005) American business consultant
Variant: There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
“An adversary is more hurt by desertion than by slaughter. (General Maxims)”
aduersarium amplius frangunt transfugae quam perempti.
De Re Militari (also Epitoma Rei Militaris), Book III, "Dispositions for Action"
“To a poet nothing can be useless.”
Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 10
“There's nothing useless to a man of sense.”
Jean De La Fontaine
(1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.
Il n'est rien d'inutile aux personnes de sens.
Book V (1668), fable 19.
Fables (1668–1679)
“The maxim ‘Nothing avails but perfection’ may be spelt shorter: ‘Paralysis.”
Minute [brief note] to General Ismay, December 6, 1942, on proposed improvements to landing-craft.
In The Second World War, Volume IV : The Hinge of Fate (1951), Appendix C.
The Second World War (1939–1945)
“To say anything was useless, to say nothing was cowardly.”
Bernard Cornwell
(1944) British writer
Captain Richard Sharpe, in response to the suggestion of whipping sixty men, p. 151
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Eagle (1981)
Context: To say anything was useless, to say nothing was cowardly. "I think it a bad idea, Sir."