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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
Created
Beauty
Cannot
Ellipses
Geometrical
Formulas
Circles
Defined
Neither

More quotes by Carl von Clausewitz

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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.
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Tactics is the art of using troops in battle strategy is the art of using battles to win the war
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Only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent.
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Only great and general battles can produce great results
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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.
Carl von Clausewitz
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It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.
Carl von Clausewitz
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War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.
Carl von Clausewitz
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The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.
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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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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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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A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.
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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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All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.
Carl von Clausewitz
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Battles decide everything.
Carl von Clausewitz
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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.
Carl von Clausewitz
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In war everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are 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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The heart of France lies between Brussels and Paris.
Carl von Clausewitz
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The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation form their purposes.
Carl von Clausewitz