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Top Carl Von Clausewitz Quotes

Browse top 45 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by Carl Von Clausewitz.

Favorite Carl Von Clausewitz Quotes

1. "Válka je jen pokracování diplomacie jinými prostredky." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
2. "War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
3. "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." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
4. "Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
5. "Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
6. "To secure peace is to prepare for war." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
7. "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." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
8. "The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation form their purposes." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
9. "The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
10. "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." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
11. "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." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
12. "A conqueror is always a lover of peace." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
13. "War is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
14. "War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
15. "War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
16. "The more a general is accustomed to place heavy demands on his soldiers, the more he can depend on their response." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
17. "Our knowledge of circumstances has increased, but our uncertainty, instead of having diminished, has only increased. The reason of this is, that we do not gain all our experience at once, but by degrees; so our determinations continue to be assailed incessantly by fresh experience; and the mind, if we may use the expression, must always be under arms." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
18. "...in war, the advantages and disadvantages of a single action could only be determined by the final balance." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
19. "Surprise becomes effective when we suddenly face the enemy at one point with far more troops than he expected. This type of numerical superiority is quite distinct from numerical superiority in general: it is the most powerful medium in the art of war." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
20. "Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
21. "Courage, above all things, is the first quality of a warrior." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
22. "It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
23. "Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
24. "Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
25. "Politics is the womb in which war develops." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
26. "casualty reports on either side are never accurate, seldom truthful, and in most cases deliberately falsified." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
27. "Thus it has come about that our theoretical and critical literature, instead of giving plain, straightforward arguments in which the author at least always knows what he is saying and the reader what he is reading, is crammed with jargon, ending at obscure crossroads where the author loses its readers. Sometimes these books are even worse: they are just hollow shells. The author himself no longer knows just what he is thinking and soothes himself with obscure ideas which would not satisfy him if expressed in plain speech." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
28. "The commander's talents are given greatest scope in rough hilly country. Mountains allow him too little real command over his scattered units and he is unable to control them all; in open country, control is a simple matter and does not test his ability to the fullest." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
29. "Pity the theory which sets itself in opposition to the mind! It cannot repair this contradiction by any humility, and the humbler it is so much the sooner will ridicule and contempt drive it from real life." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
30. "The conqueror is always a lover of peace; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
31. "The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
32. "No one starts a war--or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so--without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
33. "War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
34. "There are cases in which the greatest daring is the greatest wisdom." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
35. "...as man under pressure tends to give in to physical and intellectual weakness, only great strength of will can lead to the objective." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
36. "If we read history with an open mind, we cannot fail to conclude that, among all the military virtues, the energetic conduct of war has always contributed most to glory and success." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
37. "All war presupposes human weakness and seeks to exploit it." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
38. "[...] to introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity" ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
39. "We repeat again: 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." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
40. "Boldness governed by superior intellect is the mark of a hero." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
41. "War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
42. "Great things alone can make a great mind, and petty things will make a petty mind unless a man rejects them as completely alien." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
43. "...the side that feels the lesser urge for peace will naturally get the better bargain." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
44. "Essentally combat is an expression of hostile feelings. But in the large-scale combat that we call war hostile feelings often have become merely hostile intentions. At any rate, there are usually no hostile feelings between individuals. Yet such emotions can never be completely absent from war. Modern wars are seldom fought without hatred between nations; this serves as a more or less substitute for the hatred between individuals. Even when there is no natural hatred and no animosity to start with, the fighting itself will stir up hostile feelings: violence committed on superior orders will stir up the desire for revenge and retaliation against the perpetrator rather than against the powers that ordered the action. It is only human (or animal, if you like), but it is a fact." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz
45. "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." ~ Carl Von Clausewitz

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Il n'y a point de génie sans un grain de folie."
Author: Aristotle

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Con
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