Carl von Clausewitz Quotes
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Courage, above all things, is the first quality of a warrior.
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Politics is the womb in which war develops.
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War is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter.
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If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.
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War is the continuation of politics by other means.
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Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.
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The more a general is accustomed to place heavy demands on his soldiers, the more he can depend on their response.
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Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
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War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering.
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War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.
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Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.
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A conqueror is always a lover of peace.
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The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.
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War is the province of danger.
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War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.
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Obstinacy is a fault of temperament. Stubbornness and intolerance of contradiction result from a special kind of egotism, which elevates above everything else the pleasure of its autonomous intellect, to which others must bow.
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To secure peace is to prepare for war.
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Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst.
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It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.
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I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together.
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...in the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.
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All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.
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Where execution is dominant, as it is in the individual events of a war whether great or small, then intellectual factors are reduced to a minimum.
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War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.