Pax Hominibus Bonae Voluntatis by Aleister Crowley in International, Dec 1917.

“I learned also that my best chance of defeating him was to know what he was going to do before he did it; to read his mind in his eye and his wrist.” [via]

Consider also:

  1. “It is necessary in many circumstances to fight; and, in order to fight well, one needs certain quite definite qualities. In olden days I did a good deal of fencing, by which I do not mean receiving stolen goods. I mean the play of rapier and small-sword. I learned that I must be entirely concentrated on the business on hand, and that elaborate arguments purporting to prove that my opponent was a Chinaman or a heretic, were out of place.”
  2. “Having purchased my tie and wept together about Bond street, we began to talk about the war. I said to him: ‘If I had come into this shop (or should I say store) with the firm conviction that you were a dangerous maniac, thirsting for my blood, that you were insensible to every feeling of humanity, that the fiercest and most malignant wild beasts had nothing on you (I believe that is the correct phrase) in the matter of atrocity, I do not think we should have settled this matter of the tie (or should I say neckwear) with the philosophic calm which has characterized our interview up to this point.’ I regret to say that this person was so lost to all sense of patriotism as to agree with me.”
  3. “I think it will be clear that in order to read the man’s mind, you must put away from you anything like emotion. You are there to kill him efficiently, and you should practice the detachment of the surgeon, who does not wring his hands and wail when he sees the patient on the operating table.”
  4. "Where such ideas are pushed to the limit the results are utterly abominable. We need only refer to the destruction of one of the finest races of the world, the American Indian, which was due to nothing but the conviction that he was a remorseless and treacherous savage."
  5. "We need not be afraid of an armistice; time is on our side, not theirs."