X

Sort by

Quote length

Sentiment

Change font

Change background

Carl Von Clausewitz Inspirational Quotes (81)

Page 2 of 4
Filter & Style
Image
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
Image
Rather than comparing [war] to art we could more accurately compare it to commerce, which is also a conflict of human interests and activities and it is still closer to politics, which in turn may be considered as a kind of commerce on a larger scale.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
Desperate affairs require desperate remedies.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
It should be noted that the seeds of wisdom that are to bear fruit in the intellect are sown less by critical studies and learned monographs than by insights, broad impressions, and flashes of intuition.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
Whenever armed forces . . . are used, the idea of combat must be present. . . . The end for which a soldier is recruited, clothed, armed, and trained, the whole object of his sleeping, eating, drinking, and marching is simply that he should fight at the right place and the right time.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
The very nature of interactions is bound to make it unpredictable.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
Be audacious and cunning in your plans, firm and persevering in their execution, determined to find a glorious end.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
Intelligence alone is not courage, we often see that the most intelligent people are irresolute. Since in the rush of events a man is governed by feelings rather than by thought, the intellect needs to arouse the quality of courage, which then supports and sustains it in action.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
Boldness will be at a disadvantage only in an encounter with deliberate caution, which may be considered bold in its own right, and is certainly just as powerful and effective but such cases are rare.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
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.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
In the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
Men are always more inclined to pitch their estimate of the enemy's strength too high than too low, such is human nature.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
To achieve victory we must mass our forces at the hub of all power & movement. The enemy's 'Center of Gravity'
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
Knowing is different from doing and therefore theory must never be used as norms for a standard, but merely as aids to judgment.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
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.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
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.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
Carl von Clausewitz
Image
In War more than anywhere else in the world things happen differently to what we had expected, and look differently when near, to what they did at a distance.
Carl von Clausewitz
Previous
Next