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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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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
Nothing
Scales
Thing
Enter
Definitions
Abstruse
Elements
Duel
Shall
Publicists
War
Extensive
Keep
Scale
Used
Element

More quotes by Carl von Clausewitz

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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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A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.
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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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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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Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank.
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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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War is an act of force, and to the application of that force there is no limit. Each of the adversaries forces the hand of the other, and a reciprocal action results which in theory can have no limit.
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Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.
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Action in war is like movement in a resistant element. Just as the simplest and most natural of movements, walking, cannot easily be performed in water, so in war, it is difficult for normal efforts to achieve even moderate results.
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A conqueror is always a lover of peace.
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Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.
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Politics is the womb in which war develops.
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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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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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Knowledge must become capability.
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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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A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.
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In War more than anywhere else in the world things happen differently to what we had expected, and look differently when near, to what they did at a distance.
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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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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