Courage is like love: it must have hope for nourishment.
- Napoleon I, Maxims (1804-15)

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle
- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress
- Napoleon I, Political Aphorisms (1848)

It is right to be taught, even by an enemy
- Ovid, Metamorphoses, IV

War is the trade of Kings
- John Dryden, King Arthur, II, ii (1691)

A perfect general, like Plato's republic, is a figment of the imagination
- King Frederick II of Prussia, Instructions for his Generals (1747)

It is better to be faithful than famous
- Theodore Roosevelt, maxim adopted in 1903

Only the worthy get killed; my type always survives
- King Frederick II of Prussia, letter to his sister Wilhelmina (1757)

To the man of honour nothing is left but to envy those who fall in the field of battle
- Field Marshal August von Gneisenau, after the Battle of Auerstadt (1806)

Everything which the enemy least expects will succeed the best
- King Frederick II of Prussia, Instructions for his Generals (1747)