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Der Krieg ist nichts als eine Fortsetzung des politischen Verkehrs mit Einmischung anderer Mittel. War is merely the continuation of policy with the admixture of other means.

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
War
Means
Eine
Mean
Admixture
Mit
Continuation
Als
Merely
Policy

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The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.
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Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.
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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.
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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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War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale.
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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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To achieve victory we must mass our forces at the hub of all power & movement. The enemy's 'Center of Gravity'
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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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Whenever armed forces . . . are used, the idea of combat must be present. . . . The end for which a soldier is recruited, clothed, armed, and trained, the whole object of his sleeping, eating, drinking, and marching is simply that he should fight at the right place and the right time.
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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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Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.
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War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
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War is the province of danger.
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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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Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty and chance.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.
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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 a conflict of great interests which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that is it different from others.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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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No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy
Carl von Clausewitz