To Sun-tzu and the ancient Chinese, doing something extraordinary had little effect without a setup of something ordinary. You had to mix the two – to fix your opponent’s expectations with some banal, ordinary maneuver, a comfortable pattern that they would then expect you to follow.

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.

What we need to understand is that when traditions become laws, rules, obligations and expectations others put on us that we don’t want to fulfill, then they lose real meaning and steal the joy from our lives. And if we’re too religious, we won’t be able to be led by the Holy Spirit and enjoy an intimate relationship with Him.

At 57, to have a No. 1 album, I wasn’t expecting it.

I’m always surprised when people respond positively to what I am saying, given its seriousnessness and strange nature.

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

My unpredictability is what separates me. If you move in so many ways, your opponent is not focused on what he’s doing. He’s focusing in on what you’re doing, and it freezes him. When they freeze and you hit, they shatter like glass.

Some people feel affronted when something they thought to be true doesn’t happen. If that’s the case, then your sense of risk is much higher, and that leads to risk aversion. You need to be able to be comfortable in uncertainty.

In politics… never retreat, never retract… never admit a mistake.

The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments‘ plans.

If you are a small company taking on a big company, you need to have a sense of humor.

It’s in the best interest of the radical left types – best psychological and strategic interest – to refuse to admit to the possibility that reasonable people can object to their ideological staff. Because if reasonable people objected, that would imply that their ideological stance is not reasonable.

It is true that the king has made a truce with the duke of Burgundy for fifteen days and that the duke is to turn over the city of Paris at the end of fifteen days. Yet you should not marvel if I do not enter that city so quickly.

The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.

The Occupy movement is – it was a big surprise.

Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.

A grandmother pretends she doesn’t know who you are on Halloween.

One must change one’s tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one’s superiority.

Sometimes when you’ve had a long series of disappointing things happen, you can get into the very bad habit of just expecting more of what you’ve already had.

Everyone does things differently on offense. Everyone’s goal is to score points.

The only way you can beat the lawyers is to die with nothing.

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.

Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don’t ever apologize for anything.

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

You do the policy, I’ll do the politics.

I was from a small town, and nobody really expects you to leave, especially before you graduate. That doesn’t happen.

General Giap was one of the most brilliant military strategists of our era, who in Dien Bien Phu was able to place missile launchers in remote, mountainous jungles, something the yankee and European military officers considered impossible.

The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your spell on them is broken. More: You have ceded them power.

The onus is on the managers to send out an attacking formation and to tell their players to be bold.

The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.

When you come to see a picture of mine, I want you to know that I’m not going to do anything that will make you uncomfortable. I want you to know that you won’t be disappointed in me.

People look to time in expectation that it will eventually make them happy, but you cannot find true happiness by looking toward the future.

We should not fight wars without a clearly defined end state… when you go to war, it can’t be a half-step.

Our priority is to go after ISIL. And so what we have said is that we are not engaging in a military action against the Syrian regime. We are going after ISIL facilities and personnel who are using Syria as a safe haven, in service of our strategy in Iraq.

A friend will tell you she saw your old boyfriend – and he’s a priest.

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.

Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.

I’m not who people expect me to be. I’m not Henry Kissinger.

It’s what counts, isn’t it, on the Sunday, rather than pre-season testing. If you lock up, you do a little mistake, it’s nothing, but if you do it on Sunday, you lose a place or you have to box for a flat spot or something like that. It’s a much bigger problem.

We should develop anti-satellite weapons because we could not have prevailed without them in ‚Red Storm Rising‘.

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.

Put a love note in his shaving kit before he leaves on a business trip.

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

Pre-emptive war might fall within the framework of international law.

You can play fast but not in a hurry. As a point guard, I can dictate that.

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand. The primary thing that excites me is the mission. But we have always had a healthy understanding that we need to do both.

The target of preventive war must have several characteristics. It must be virtually defenceless; it must be important enough to be worth the trouble; it must be possible to portray it as the ultimate evil and an imminent threat to our survival.

There are different ways to do innovation. You can plant a lot of seeds, not be committed to any particular one of them, but just see what grows. And this really isn’t how we’ve approached this. We go mission-first, then focus on the pieces we need and go deep on them and be committed to them.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

If you will have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman. The second thing you have to do is convince your allies so you’ll have some help, and the third and probably unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he or she is subhuman and deserves it.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

Everybody that’s successful lays a blueprint out.

We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon – no alternative.

I fully understand the expectations of the state governments. Thus, I am better placed to work closely with the chief ministers.

Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.