Quote

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

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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
Like
Speak
Fog
Action
Moonlight
Place
Twilight
Seems
Tends
Kind
Larger
Really
Seem
Make
Takes
Things
Often
Grotesque

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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.
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War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.
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Knowledge must become capability.
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No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy
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A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.
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In war, while everything is simple, even the simplest thing is difficult. Difficulties accumulate and produce frictions which no one can comprehend who has not seen war.
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What we should admire is the acute fulfillment of the unspoken assumptions, the smooth harmony of the whole activity, which only become evident in the final success.
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War is an act of force, and to the application of that force there is no limit. Each of the adversaries forces the hand of the other, and a reciprocal action results which in theory can have no limit.
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War is the province of danger.
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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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Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
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A conqueror is always a lover of peace.
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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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The heart of France lies between Brussels and Paris.
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To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it.
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Self-reliance is the best defence against the pressures of the moment.
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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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Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.
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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.
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