This military aphorism has been attributed to both von Moltke and Clausewitz, as well as Churchill. It was familiar to President and former Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe Dwight D. Eisenhower: I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long ago in the Army: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of 'emergency' is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning.
 • Speech to the National Defense Executive Reserve Conference in Washington, D.C. (November 14, 1957) ; from Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1957, National Archives and Records Service, Government Printing Office, p. 818 : , 9780160588518
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Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.

— Winston Churchill

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential." in the context of "This military aphorism has been attributed to both von Moltke and Clausewitz, as well as Churchill. It was familiar to President and former Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe Dwight D. Eisenhower: I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long ago in the Army: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of 'emergency' is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning.
 • Speech to the National Defense Executive Reserve Conference in Washington, D.C. (November 14, 1957) ; from Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1957, National Archives and Records Service, Government Printing Office, p. 818 : , 9780160588518 " to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Winston Churchill" (Misattributed) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed February 05, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

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Winston Churchill

About Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG OM CH TD FRS PC (November 30, 1874 – January 24, 1965) was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was a Sandhurst-educated soldier, a Nobel Prize-winning writer and historian, a prolific painter, and one of the longest-serving politicians in British history. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955, though he was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.