“No war is ever fought exactly like any other before it, and history is full of stories of commanders who came to grief trying to follow an old pattern of victory once too often. Whatever is new in tactics, equipment or method must be taught at the squad level before a soldier gets into combat.”

— Mark W. Clark

Source: From the Danube to the Yalu (1954), p. 25

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Mark W. Clark 23

American general 1896–1984

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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.
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Probably apocryphal. This quotation does not appear in any print translation of Sun Tzu. The first citation in Google Books is from 2002; no citation in Google Books occurs in a translation of Sun Tzu.
Misattributed