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A conqueror is always a lover of peace.

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
Always
Conqueror
Lover
Lovers
Peace

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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.
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Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
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Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty and chance.
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War is the province of danger.
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It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.
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All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.
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Men are always more inclined to pitch their estimate of the enemy's strength too high than too low, such is human nature.
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There is only one decisive victory: the last.
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A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.
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Only great and general battles can produce great results
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A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.
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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.
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War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
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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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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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In the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.
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No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy
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Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank.
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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.
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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