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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
Conqueror
Lover
Lovers
Peace
Always

More quotes by 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.
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There are times when the utmost daring is the height of wisdom.
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Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
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Knowledge must become capability.
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Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty and chance.
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The very nature of interactions is bound to make it unpredictable.
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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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Desperate affairs require desperate remedies.
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War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
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In 1793 such a force as no one had any conception of made its appearance. War had again suddenly become an affair of the people, and that of a people numbering thirty millions, every one of whom regarded himself as a citizen of the State... By this participation of the people in the war... a whole Nation with its natural weight came into the scale.
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Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.
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To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it.
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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
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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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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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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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Tactics is the art of using troops in battle strategy is the art of using battles to win the war
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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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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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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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