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Battles decide everything.

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
Battles
Decide
Battle
Everything

More quotes by Carl von Clausewitz

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The best strategy is always to be very strong.
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No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy
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There are times when the utmost daring is the height of wisdom.
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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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War is the province of danger.
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The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.
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To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it.
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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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Knowledge must become capability.
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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.
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.
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A conqueror is always a lover of peace.
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Every combat is the bloody and destructive measuring of the strength of forces, physical and moral whoever at the close has the greatest amount of both left is the conqueror.
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.
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In war, while everything is simple, even the simplest thing is difficult. Difficulties accumulate and produce frictions which no one can comprehend who has not seen war.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Tactics is the art of using troops in battle strategy is the art of using battles to win the war
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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Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
Carl von Clausewitz
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The difficulty of accurate recognition constitutes one of the most serious sources of friction in war, by making things appear entirely different from what one had expected.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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.
Carl von Clausewitz