“When the enemy is driven back, we have failed, and when he is cut off, encircled and dispersed, we have succeeded.”
"The Book of Military Quotations" - Page 124 by Peter G. Tsouras - Reference - 2005.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Alexander Suvorov 24
Russian military commander 1730–1800Related quotes

Letter to Norman Thomas (25 September 1951) http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAsocialismP.htm
Context: The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to "End Poverty in California" I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them.
“When thy enemy stretches out his hand to thee, cut it off if thou art able, otherwise kiss it.”
History of the Caliphs, p.275

“Like Aesop's fox, when he had lost his tail, would have all his fellow foxes cut off theirs.”
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Democritus Junior to the Reader

Letter to George Washington (August 1778)

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

Source: A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

The Better Part (1901)
Context: Mankind is governed by the worst — the strongest example of this is to be seen in American municipalities, but it is true of every government. We are governed by rogues who hold their grip upon us by and through statute law. Were it not for law the people could protect themselves against these thieves, but now we are powerless and are robbed legally. One mild form of coercion these rogues resort to is to call us unpatriotic when we speak the truth about them. Not long ago they would have cut off our heads. The world moves. Governments cannot be done away with instantaneously, but progress will come, as it has in the past by lessening the number of laws. We want less governing, and the ideal government will arrive when there is no government at all.
So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs. So long as men are clubbed, robbed, imprisoned, disgraced, hanged by the governing class, just so long will the idea of violence and brutality be born in the souls of men.

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Fire Book