Alan Cate’s Military Commonplace Book on one page. “Commonplace books ” essentially scrapbooks filled with items of every kind: medical recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas. Commonplaces were used by readers, writers, students, and humanists as an aid for remembering useful concepts or facts they had learned. Each commonplace book was unique to its creator’s particular interests.

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The bomber will always get through. — Stanley Baldwin, Alan Cate’s Commonplace Book of Military References

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The nation that insists on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards. — General William Butler, Alan Cate’s Commonplace Book of Military References

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Now we can get back to real soldiering. — General Foch, on the end of World War I, Alan Cate’s Commonplace Book of Military References

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(USAF) General (Curtis) Lemay was being briefed by a young officer who kept referring to the USSR as the“enemy.” “Young man”, said an exasperated Lemay,“The USSR is our adversary, our enemy is the Navy. — Alan Cate’s Commonplace Book of Military References

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F. W. von Mellenthin on German War college circa 1937: Only thing students failed for (1) not making a timely decision (2) not being able to explain why. Tactics instructors must avoid both (1) school solution and (2) slush of “any solution is OK.” — Alan Cate’s Commonplace Book of Military References

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How many people work at the Pentagon? About half. — Alan Cate, Alan Cate’s Commonplace Book of Military References

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It took 14 days for policy directives from London to reach Wellington in the Peninsula’5 minutes for a decision and 14 days to transmit. Today it would take only 5 minutes to transmit’after a 14 day decision making process. — Alan Cate, Alan Cate’s Commonplace Book of Military References

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Not only do plans fail to survive contact with the enemy, they frequently don’t survive contact with friends. — Alan Cate (revised slightly by JS), Alan Cate’s Commonplace Book of Military References

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Prince Frederick Charles to a major whose excuse for a tactical blunder was that he was only following orders. In the Prussian Army an order from a senior officer was tantamount to an order from the King.“The King made you a major because he thought you were smart enough to know when not to obey orders. — Alan Cate’s Commonplace Book of Military References

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Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum. If you want peace, prepare war — Vegetitus, Alan Cate’s Commonplace Book of Military References

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The draftee Navy: [A] master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. — Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny, Alan Cate’s Commonplace Book of Military References

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War too serious to be left to the generals — Clemenceau, Alan Cate’ss Commonplace Book of Military References

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If I took your gloomy view, I should commence immediate inquiries as to the most painless form of suicide. But I think you listen too much to the soldiers. No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you never should trust the experts. If you believe the doctors nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians nothing is innocent; if you believe the soldiers nothing is safe. They all require to have their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.
Lord Salisbury to Lord Lytton, Indian Viceroy, 15 Jun 1877. — Alan Cate’s Commonplace Book of Military References

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If we want peace, we must understand war. — Liddell-Hart, paraphrasing the Roman maxim, Alan Cate’s Commonplace Book of Military References