The ancients said: after victory, tighten the cords of your helmet.

One gun that hits with every shot can match a hundred guns that hit one in a hundred.

I fight my enemies with swords, not with salt.

-- The 'Dragon of Echigo' — a Sengoku-era warlord whose devotion to righteous warfare and Buddhist faith made him Japan's most paradoxical military figure

In war, a victory of sixty percent is the best. Total victory breeds complacency.

-- The 'Tiger of Kai' who transformed his landlocked mountain domain into one of Sengoku Japan's most formidable military powers

To achieve the objective, do not be choosy about methods.

-- The ruthlessly effective architect of modern Japan who built the Meiji state's institutions while his more charismatic peers took the glory

Then we shall fight in the shade.

-- The Spartan king who led 300 warriors in a suicidal last stand at Thermopylae

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

-- The Macedonian king who conquered the known world before his thirtieth birthday

I shall either find a way or make one.

-- The Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps with elephants and brought Rome to its knees