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Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty and chance.

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
Make
Exertion
Uncertainty
Climate
Elements
Danger
Four
Chance

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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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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.
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Battles decide everything.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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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...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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There is only one decisive victory: the last.
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Close combat, man to man, is plainly to be regarded as the real basis of combat.
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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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It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.
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The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.
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Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
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A conqueror is always a lover of peace.
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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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The very nature of interactions is bound to make it unpredictable.
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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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Only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent.
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The heart of France lies between Brussels and Paris.
Carl von Clausewitz