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

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Knowledge must become capability.
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War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.
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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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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.
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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.
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War is a conflict of great interests which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that is it different from others.
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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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In 1793 such a force as no one had any conception of made its appearance. War had again suddenly become an affair of the people, and that of a people numbering thirty millions, every one of whom regarded himself as a citizen of the State... By this participation of the people in the war... a whole Nation with its natural weight came into the scale.
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Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.
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Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.
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The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.
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The difficulty of accurate recognition constitutes one of the most serious sources of friction in war, by making things appear entirely different from what one had expected.
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To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it.
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There are very few men-and they are the exceptions-who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment
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Close combat, man to man, is plainly to be regarded as the real basis of combat.
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War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.
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War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
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Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.
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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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