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In war the will is directed at an animate object that reacts.

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
Object
Objects
Military
War
Reacts
Animate
Directed

More quotes by Carl von Clausewitz

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Tactics is the art of using troops in battle strategy is the art of using battles to win the war
Carl von Clausewitz
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Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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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Desperate affairs require desperate remedies.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination. The bloody solution of the crisis, the effort for the destruction of the enemy's forces, is the first-born son of war. Only great and general battles can produce great results. Blood is the price of victory.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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
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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.
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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Only great and general battles can produce great results
Carl von Clausewitz
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War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale.
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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Surprise becomes effective when we suddenly face the enemy at one point with far more troops than he expected. This type of numerical superiority is quite distinct from numerical superiority in general: it is the most powerful medium in the art of war.
Carl von Clausewitz
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To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it.
Carl von Clausewitz
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A conqueror is always a lover of peace.
Carl von Clausewitz
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In war everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are difficult.
Carl von Clausewitz
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We repeat again: strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them. Even with the violence of emotion, judgment and principle must still function like a ship’s compass, which records the slightest variations however rough the sea.
Carl von Clausewitz
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There is only one decisive victory: the last.
Carl von Clausewitz
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The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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
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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