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A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.

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
Defeated
Allows
Court
Mountain
Deserve
General
Decisively
Position
Extended
Deserves

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In 1793 such a force as no one had any conception of made its appearance. War had again suddenly become an affair of the people, and that of a people numbering thirty millions, every one of whom regarded himself as a citizen of the State... By this participation of the people in the war... a whole Nation with its natural weight came into the scale.
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The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.
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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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...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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Blood is the price of victory
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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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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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War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
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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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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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Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.
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Surprise becomes effective when we suddenly face the enemy at one point with far more troops than he expected. This type of numerical superiority is quite distinct from numerical superiority in general: it is the most powerful medium in the art of war.
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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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Boldness will be at a disadvantage only in an encounter with deliberate caution, which may be considered bold in its own right, and is certainly just as powerful and effective but such cases are rare.
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A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.
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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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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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Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.
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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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