PRINCIPLE
Situations always should be contemplated as they EXIST, never as they OUGHT to be, or, perhaps, MAY be.
In every important juncture, each step must be profoundly considered; as little as possible should be left to chance.
Particularly, must one never be inflated and rendered careless and negligent by success; nor made spiritless and fearful by reverses. At all times the General should see things only as they are and attempt what is dictated by that Strategetic Principle which dominates the given situation. Fortune often does the rest.
“Napoleon bending over and sometimes lying at full length upon his map, with a pair of dividers opened to a distance on the scale of from 17 to 20 miles, equal to 22 to 25 miles over country, and marking the positions of his own and of the hostile armies by sticking into the map pins surmounted by little balls made of diverse colored sealing wax; in the twinkling of an eye calculated those wonderful concentrations of his Corps d’armee upon decisive points and dictated those instructions to his Marshals which in themselves are a title to glory.”—Baron de Jomini.