Variant: Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
Source: The Art of War, Chapter IV · Disposition of the Army
“In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.”
Statement to Japanese cabinet minister Shigeharu Matsumoto and Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoe, as quoted in Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan (1985) by Ronald Spector. This remark would later prove prophetic; precisely six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese navy would suffer a major defeat at the Battle of Midway, from which it never recovered.
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Isoroku Yamamoto 7
Japanese Marshal Admiral 1884–1943Related quotes
Report on the Potsdam Conference (1945)
Context: Any man who sees Europe now must realize that victory in a great war is not something you win once and for all, like victory in a ball game. Victory in a great war is something that must be won and kept won. It can be lost after you have won it — if you are careless or negligent or indifferent.
Europe today is hungry. I am not talking about Germans. I am talking about the people of the countries which were overrun and devastated by the Germans, and particularly about the people of Western Europe. Many of them lack clothes and fuel and tools and shelter and raw materials. They lack the means to restore their cities and their factories.
As the winter comes on, the distress will increase. Unless we do what we can to help, we may lose next winter what we won at such terrible cost last spring. Desperate men are liable to destroy the structure of their society to find in the wreckage some substitute for hope. If we let Europe go cold and hungry, we may lose some of the foundations of order on which the hope for worldwide peace must rest.
We must help to the limits of our strength. And we will.
“To win the War, to overcome the enemy upon the fields cannot alone ensure the Victory in Peace.”
V. E. Day proclamation (8 May 1945) http://www.jah-rastafari.com/selassie-words/show-jah-word.asp?word_id=declar_ve.
Context: May it be taken as Divine significance, that, as We mark the passing of the Nazi Reich, in America at San Francisco, delegates from all United Nations, among whose number Ethiopia stands, are now met together for their long-planned conference to lay foundations for an international pact to banish war and to maintain World Peace. Our Churches pray for the successful triumph of this conference. Without success in this, the Victory, We celebrate today, the suffering that We have all endured will be of no avail.
To win the War, to overcome the enemy upon the fields cannot alone ensure the Victory in Peace. The cause of War must be removed. Each Nation's rights must be secure from violation. Above all, from the human mind must be erased all thoughts of War as a solution. Then and then only will War cease.
“The United States has never entered a serious war, and has never been victorious.”
September 21, 2010 interview http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/ahmadinejad-when-a-war-starts-it-knows-no-limits/63312/
2010
As quoted in Image, perception, and the making of U.S.-China relations (1998) http://books.google.com/books?id=gnmxDpX7ZlsC&pg=PA268&dq=Can+we+now+call+these+disguised+warlords+and+new+feudalists+genuine+revolutionaries&hl=en&ei=SjmmTPKiI4Wdlgen2bwY&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=We%20must%20take%20advantage%20of%20the%20victory%20in%20the%20anti-Japanese%20War%20to%20win%20our%20war%20against%20the%20Communist%20bandits%2C%20once%20for%20all&f=false by Hongshan Li and Zhaohui Hong, p. 268 ISBN 0761811583
2000s, 2003, Remarks on the Capture of Saddam Hussein (December 2003)
As quoted in Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War (1904) by George Francis Robert Henderson http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12233, Ch. 25 : The Soldier and the Man, p. 481
Context: War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end. To move swiftly, strike vigorously, and secure all the fruits of victory is the secret of successful war.
Tony Benn interview: Hope is the key, Share International Foundation http://www.share-international.org/magazine/old_issues/2003/jan_03.htm#benn (January 2003).
2000s