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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.

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
Human
Estimate
Humans
Inclined
Always
Pitch
Men
Lows
Strength
Enemy
High
Nature

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The art of war in its highest point of view is policy.
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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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War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale.
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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.
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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.
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To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it.
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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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In war everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are difficult.
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The more a general is accustomed to place heavy demands on his soldiers, the more he can depend on their response.
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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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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.
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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.
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Modern wars are seldom fought without hatred between nations this serves more or less as a substitute for hatred between individuals.
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In War, the young soldier is very apt to regard unusual fatigues as the consquence of faults, mistakes, and embarrassment in the conduct of the whole, and to become distressed and depondent as a consequence. This would not happen if he had been prepared for this beforehand by exercises in peace.
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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.
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No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy
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Desperate affairs require desperate remedies.
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The invention of gunpowder and the constant improvement of firearms are enough in themselves to show that the advance of civilization has done nothing practical to alter or deflect the impulse to destroy the enemy, which is central to the very idea of war.
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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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...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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