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Close combat, man to man, is plainly to be regarded as the real basis of combat.

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
Bases
Close
War
Real
Men
Plainly
Regarded
Combat
Basis

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A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.
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Only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent.
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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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The heart of France lies between Brussels and Paris.
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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.
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Be audacious and cunning in your plans, firm and persevering in their execution, determined to find a glorious end.
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The very nature of interactions is bound to make it unpredictable.
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Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.
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Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
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If we do not learn to regard a war, and the separate campaigns of which it is composed, as a chain of linked engagements each leading to the next, but instead succumb to the idea that the capture of certain geographical points or the seizure of undefended provinces are of value in themselves, we are liable to regard them as windfall profits.
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Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.
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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.
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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.
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I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together.
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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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Politics is the womb in which war develops.
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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.
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Self-reliance is the best defence against the pressures of the moment.
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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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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