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It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Carl von Clausewitz
Age: 51 †
Born: 1780
Born: June 1
Died: 1831
Died: November 16
Historian
Military Historian
Military Officer
Military Personnel
Military Theorist
Philosopher
Writer
Burg bei Magdeburg
Time
Hesitate
Quickly
Achievement
Inspirational
Action
Past
Better
Even
More quotes by Carl von Clausewitz
Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank.
Carl von Clausewitz
In war the will is directed at an animate object that reacts.
Carl von Clausewitz
War is only caused through the political intercourse of governments and nations - war is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse with an admixture of other means.
Carl von Clausewitz
War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.
Carl von Clausewitz
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
War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale.
Carl von Clausewitz
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
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
In war everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are difficult.
Carl von Clausewitz
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
The heart of France lies between Brussels and Paris.
Carl von Clausewitz
In War, the young soldier is very apt to regard unusual fatigues as the consquence of faults, mistakes, and embarrassment in the conduct of the whole, and to become distressed and depondent as a consequence. This would not happen if he had been prepared for this beforehand by exercises in peace.
Carl von Clausewitz
Tactics is the art of using troops in battle strategy is the art of using battles to win the war
Carl von Clausewitz
...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
The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.
Carl von Clausewitz
Desperate affairs require desperate remedies.
Carl von Clausewitz
Battles decide everything.
Carl von Clausewitz
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
Politics is the womb in which war develops - where its outlines already exist in their hidden rudimentary form, like the characteristics of living creatures in their embryos.
Carl von Clausewitz
Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.
Carl von Clausewitz
