Quotations and Literature Forum

Who, if anyone, said:

"Sometimes, you have to lose the battle to win the war."

This may not be word for word, but I think it is close.

If you seriously want to know the first person to say that, this post is going to be a disappointment to you. That concept has been around for so long that, in chess, the whole idea has been distilled into a single word, "gambit."

I suppose it might be possible to find the first known person to write it down in a literary piece, but in what language and how to find it are beyond me. I'll check Sun Tzu, but I don't recall offhand him saying that.

_________________
Regards,
Lou
I feel like a fugitive from th' law of averages.
— Bill Mauldin

I mostly saw it referred to as a saying, cliché, and even a [maxim]:

A voter who casts his ballot for a given candidate or proposal is normally probably disappointed when the persons or programs he endorses are not supported by enough other voters to become effective in the life of the community. In America, we have established the tradition of the 'good loser,' i.e., the defeated groups accommodate themselves with as good grace as they can to the victory of their opponents. Additional comfort is derived from such maxims as "Everydog has his day" and "Lose a battle to win a war."
~ George W. Hartmann (1941) Teachers College, Columbia University
First published in Psychological Review, 48, 362-363.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/FrustAgg/hartmann.htm