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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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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
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Elsewhere
War
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Begin
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More quotes by 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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The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.
Carl von Clausewitz
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No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy
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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The very nature of interactions is bound to make it unpredictable.
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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What we should admire is the acute fulfillment of the unspoken assumptions, the smooth harmony of the whole activity, which only become evident in the final success.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Politics is the womb in which war develops - where its outlines already exist in their hidden rudimentary form, like the characteristics of living creatures in their embryos.
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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Close combat, man to man, is plainly to be regarded as the real basis of combat.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Architects and painters know precisely what they are about as long as they deal with material phenomena.... But when they come to the aesthetics of their work, when they aim at a particular effect on the mind or on the senses, the rules dissolve into nothing but vague ideas.
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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War is a conflict of great interests which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that is it different from others.
Carl von Clausewitz
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It should be noted that the seeds of wisdom that are to bear fruit in the intellect are sown less by critical studies and learned monographs than by insights, broad impressions, and flashes of intuition.
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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Battles decide everything.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Be audacious and cunning in your plans, firm and persevering in their execution, determined to find a glorious end.
Carl von Clausewitz
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To achieve victory we must mass our forces at the hub of all power & movement. The enemy's 'Center of Gravity'
Carl von Clausewitz