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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
Backbone
Secrecy
Witty
Humorous
Speed
Surprise
Powerful
Fusing

More quotes by Carl von Clausewitz

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The heart of France lies between Brussels and Paris.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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
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War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale.
Carl von Clausewitz
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To achieve victory we must mass our forces at the hub of all power & movement. The enemy's 'Center of Gravity'
Carl von Clausewitz
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Desperate affairs require desperate remedies.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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
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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
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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
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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.
Carl von Clausewitz
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There is only one decisive victory: the last.
Carl von Clausewitz
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A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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
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Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Politics is the womb in which war develops.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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
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Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
Carl von Clausewitz