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Just as some plants bear fruit only if they don't shoot up too high, so in practical arts the leaves and flowers of theory must be pruned and the plant kept close to its proper soil- experience.

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
Art
Plant
Shoot
Must
Fruit
Proper
Bears
Soil
Flower
Arts
Close
Flowers
Pruned
Theory
Leaves
Plants
High
Kept
Practicals
Experience
Bear
Practical

More quotes by 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.
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Rather than comparing [war] to art we could more accurately compare it to commerce, which is also a conflict of human interests and activities and it is still closer to politics, which in turn may be considered as a kind of commerce on a larger scale.
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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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The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.
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Blood is the price of victory
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Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
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To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it.
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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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The very nature of interactions is bound to make it unpredictable.
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The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.
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War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
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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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Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.
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Politics is the womb in which war develops.
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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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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.
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War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.
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The heart of France lies between Brussels and Paris.
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Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.
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Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.
Carl von Clausewitz