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The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.
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
Humorous
Speed
Surprise
Powerful
Fusing
Backbone
Secrecy
Witty
More quotes by Carl von Clausewitz
Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.
Carl von Clausewitz
The more a general is accustomed to place heavy demands on his soldiers, the more he can depend on their response.
Carl von Clausewitz
Only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent.
Carl von Clausewitz
Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
Carl von Clausewitz
In the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.
Carl von Clausewitz
In war the will is directed at an animate object that reacts.
Carl von Clausewitz
Der Krieg ist nichts als eine Fortsetzung des politischen Verkehrs mit Einmischung anderer Mittel. War is merely the continuation of policy with the admixture of other means.
Carl von Clausewitz
Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank.
Carl von Clausewitz
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.
Carl von Clausewitz
A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.
Carl von Clausewitz
A conqueror is always a lover of peace.
Carl von Clausewitz
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
Only great and general battles can produce great results
Carl von Clausewitz
The art of war in its highest point of view is policy.
Carl von Clausewitz
With uncertainty in one scale, courage and self-confidence should be thrown into the other to correct the balance. The greater they are, the greater the margin that can be left for accidents.
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
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
Battles decide everything.
Carl von Clausewitz
Every combat is the bloody and destructive measuring of the strength of forces, physical and moral whoever at the close has the greatest amount of both left is the conqueror.
Carl von Clausewitz
There are very few men-and they are the exceptions-who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment
Carl von Clausewitz
