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Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.

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
Circles
Defined
Neither
Created
Beauty
Cannot
Ellipses
Geometrical
Formulas

More quotes by Carl von Clausewitz

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Politics is the womb in which war develops.
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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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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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War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
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A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.
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The heart of France lies between Brussels and Paris.
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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 is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.
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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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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.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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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Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
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Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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.
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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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Knowing is different from doing and therefore theory must never be used as norms for a standard, but merely as aids to judgment.
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
Carl von Clausewitz
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Obstinacy is a fault of temperament. Stubbornness and intolerance of contradiction result from a special kind of egotism, which elevates above everything else the pleasure of its autonomous intellect, to which others must bow.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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'
Carl von Clausewitz