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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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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
Affair
General
Military
Policy
Certain
Grasp
Affairs
Charge
Vital

More quotes by Carl von Clausewitz

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A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.
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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...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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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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Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent.
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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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
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It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.
Carl von Clausewitz
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The art of war in its highest point of view is policy.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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
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War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.
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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War is the province of danger.
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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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.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty and chance.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Responsibility and danger do not tend to free or stimulate the average person's mind- rather the contrary but wherever they do liberate an individual's judgement and confidence we can be sure that we are in the presence of exceptional ability.
Carl von Clausewitz