Give them a whiff of grapeshot.

You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? Excuse me, I have no time to listen to such nonsense.

A constitution should be short and obscure.

Quoted in Representative Men: Uses of Great Men by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The combination of modern ordnance and outdated tactics had, as ever, created enormous casualties on both sides.

My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, t…

All who surrender will be spared; whoever does not surrender but opposes with struggle and dissension, shall be annihilated.