One Should Never Forbid What One Lacks

This Soldier, I Realized, Must Have Had Friends At Home And In His Regiment; Yet He Lay There Deserted By All Except His Dog. I Looked On, Unmoved, At Battles Which Decided The Future Of Nations. Tearless, I Had Given Orders Which Brought Death To Thousands. Yet Here I Was Stirred, Profoundly Stirred, Stirred To Tears. And By What? By The Grief Of One Dog. Napoleon Bonaparte, On Finding A Dog Beside The Body Of His Dead Master, Licking His Face And Howling, On A Moonlit Field After A Battle. Napoleon Was Haunted By This Scene Until His Own Death.

Every Means Should Be Taken To Attach The Soldier To His Colours.

From Triumph To Downfall Is But A Step. I Have Seen A Trifle Decide The Most Important Issues In The Gravest Affairs.

Sometimes A Single Battle Decides Everything And Sometimes, Too, The Slightest Circumstance Decides The Issue Of A Battle. There Is A Moment In Every Battle At Which The Least Manoeuvre Is Decisive And Gives Superiority, As One Drop Of Water Causes Overflow.

Public Opinion Is A Mysterious And Invisible Power, To Which Everything Must Yield. There Is Nothing More Fickle, More Vague, Or More Powerful; Yet Capricious As It Is, It Is Nevertheless Much More Often True, Reasonable, And Just, Than We Imagine.