Carl von Clausewitz Quotes
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Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.
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War therefore is an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.
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Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.
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The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.
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Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.
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Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.
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War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
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Architects and painters know precisely what they are about as long as they deal with material phenomena. … But when they come to the aesthetics of their work, when they aim at a particular effect on the mind or on the senses, the rules dissolve into nothing but vague ideas.
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Strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them. Even with the violence of emotion, judgment and principle must still function like a ship’s compass, which records the slightest variations however rough the sea.
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Action in war is like movement in a resistant element. Just as the simplest and most natural of movements, walking, cannot easily be performed in water, so in war it is difficult for normal efforts to achieve even moderate results.
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Knowledge in war is very simple, being concerned with so few subjects, and only with their final results at that. But this does not make its application easy.
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...only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent.
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Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.
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There are times when the utmost daring is the height of wisdom.
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To introduce into the philosophy of War itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity.
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A prince or general can best demonstrate his genius by managing a campaign exactly to suit his objectives and his resources, doing neither too much nor too little.
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Men are always more inclined to pitch their estimate of the enemy's strength too high than too low, such is human nature.
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Timidity is the root of prudence in the majority of men.
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The invention of gunpowder and the constant improvement of firearms are enough in themselves to show that the advance of civilization has done nothing practical to alter or deflect the impulse to destroy the enemy, which is central to the very idea of war.
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...as man under pressure tends to give in to physical and intellectual weakness, only great strength of will can lead to the objective.
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Of all the passions that inspire a man in a battle, none, we have to admit, is so powerful and so constant as the longing for honor and reknown.
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If a segment of one's force is located where it is not sufficiently busy with the enemy, or if the troops are on the march - that is, idle - while the enemy is fighting, then these forces are being managed uneconomically. In this sense they are being wasted, which is even worse than using them inappropriately.
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Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln
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The worst of all conditions in which a belligerent can find himself is to be utterly defenseless.