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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

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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
Power
Center
Must
Forces
Victory
Mass
Achieve
Movement
Enemy
Hub
Force
Gravity

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Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
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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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In war the will is directed at an animate object that reacts.
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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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Close combat, man to man, is plainly to be regarded as the real basis of combat.
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Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank.
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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.
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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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Be audacious and cunning in your plans, firm and persevering in their execution, determined to find a glorious end.
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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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There are times when the utmost daring is the height of wisdom.
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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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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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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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Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.
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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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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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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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