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Quotation from The Art of War by Niccolo Machiavelli
“for as muche as the errours that I maie happen to make by writing, may be without harme to any man corrected: but those the whiche of them be made in doyng cannot be knowen without the ruine of Empires”
The Art of War, Proheme (dedication to Lorenzo Strozzi), trans. Peter Whitehorne (1560)
Machiavelli justifies a civilian writing on war: a theorist's mistakes are harmless, a commander's catastrophic.
Citation: "for as muche as the errours that I maie happen to make by writing, may be without harme to any man corrected: but those the whiche of them be made in doyng cannot be knowen without the ruine of Empires" — Niccolo Machiavelli, The Art of War, Proheme (dedication to Lorenzo Strozzi), trans. Peter Whitehorne (1560). (id the-art-of-war-machiavelli-q2)
Portrait: Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli, Santi di Tito, Public domain.
