Quote

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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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
Theory
Results
Hand
Reciprocal
Force
Adversaries
War
Application
Action
Limit
Hands
Forces
Limits

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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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Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
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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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The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.
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Desperate affairs require desperate remedies.
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War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.
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No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy
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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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The heart of France lies between Brussels and Paris.
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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.
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Self-reliance is the best defence against the pressures of the moment.
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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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Responsibility and danger do not tend to free or stimulate the average person's mind- rather the contrary but wherever they do liberate an individual's judgement and confidence we can be sure that we are in the presence of exceptional ability.
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Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.
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If we do not learn to regard a war, and the separate campaigns of which it is composed, as a chain of linked engagements each leading to the next, but instead succumb to the idea that the capture of certain geographical points or the seizure of undefended provinces are of value in themselves, we are liable to regard them as windfall profits.
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A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.
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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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Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
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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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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.
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