Aristotle’s Observation
Aristotle
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Burns’s Law
Robert Burns
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.
Disraeli’s Second Law
Benjamin Disraeli
What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens.
Herodotus’s Law
Herodotus
Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.
Hoyle’s Rule
Edmond Hoyle
When in doubt, take the trick.
Jefferson’s Ukase
Thomas Jefferson
Delay is preferable to error.
Kahn’s Law
Alfred Kahn
If you can’t explain what you’re doing in simple English, you are probably doing something wrong.
Liddell Hart’s Maxims
Basil Liddell-Hart
1. Adjust your end to your means - in effect don’t bite off more than you can chew.
2. Keep your objective always in mind, adapting plans to circumstances, remembering that there are more ways than one of gaining an objective and making sure that attainment of intermediate objectives is worthwhile. “To wander down a side-track is bad but to reach a dead end is worse.”
3. Choose the line (or course) of least expectation i.e. put yourself in your opponent’s shoes and take the line of action that he (or she) is least likely to foresee or forestall.
4. Exploit the line of least resistance - providing of course that it leads toward your ultimate objective.
5. Pursue a line of operation that offers alternate objectives. Your opponent will not be sure which objective to defend most strongly and you will have a better chance of gaining at least one of them - whichever he (or she) guards least - and perhaps of achieving one after the other.
6. Make sure that your plans and dispositions of forces are flexible. Any plan should provide for a next step quickly carried out in case of success or failure or - the more common outcome in war - partial success. (See also Publilius’s Maxims no. 469.)
7. Do not throw your weight into an offensive while your opponent is on guard. Unless the enemy is much inferior in strength, wait until his (or her) power of resistance or evasion is paralysed by disorganisation and demoralisation before making a real attack.
8. Do not renew an attack along the same line or in the same manner after it has once failed. Bringing up reinforcements is not enough since the enemy is likely to do the same and his (or her) success in repulsing you will have strengthened his (or her) morale.
Spencer’s Law
Herbert Spencer
Every cause produces more than one effect.
Addison’s Law
Joseph Addison
He who hesitates is lost.
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