For an order to be properly carried out, it is necessary for a man to issue an order that is capable of being carried out. But to know what is and isn't capable of being carried out is impossible, not only in the case of Napoleon's campaign against Russia, involving millions, but even in the case of the simplest occurrence, since millions of obstacles can always get in the way of either of these. Every order carried out is always one of many that are not. All the impossible orders fail to engage with the course of events and don't get carried out. It is only the possible ones that do engage with the run of subsequent orders, do correspond with the course of events and do get carried out.
Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace Epilogue, Part II, Chapter 6
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