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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
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
Moment
Moments
Able
Feel
Feels
Exceptions
Men
Exception
Think
Beyond
Thinking
Present
More quotes by Carl von Clausewitz
We shall not enter into any of the abstruse definitions of war used by publicists. We shall keep to the element of the thing itself, to a duel. War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale.
Carl von Clausewitz
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
Desperate affairs require desperate remedies.
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
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.
Carl von Clausewitz
Close combat, man to man, is plainly to be regarded as the real basis of combat.
Carl von Clausewitz
The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation form their purposes.
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
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
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
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
War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale.
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
Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.
Carl von Clausewitz
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.
Carl von Clausewitz
War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
Carl von Clausewitz
War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.
Carl von Clausewitz
In war the will is directed at an animate object that reacts.
Carl von Clausewitz
Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
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
