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Every combat is the bloody and destructive measuring of the strength of forces, physical and moral whoever at the close has the greatest amount of both left is the conqueror.
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
Force
Destructive
Left
Forces
Every
Physical
Close
Conqueror
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Greatest
Combat
Moral
Whoever
More quotes by Carl von Clausewitz
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.
Carl von Clausewitz
Only great and general battles can produce great results
Carl von Clausewitz
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
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
Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.
Carl von Clausewitz
Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty and chance.
Carl von Clausewitz
The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.
Carl von Clausewitz
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
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.
Carl von Clausewitz
To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it.
Carl von Clausewitz
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.
Carl von Clausewitz
There is only one decisive victory: the last.
Carl von Clausewitz
The best strategy is always to be very strong.
Carl von Clausewitz
To achieve victory we must mass our forces at the hub of all power & movement. The enemy's 'Center of Gravity'
Carl von Clausewitz
Self-reliance is the best defence against the pressures of the moment.
Carl von Clausewitz
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
There are times when the utmost daring is the height of wisdom.
Carl von Clausewitz
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.
Carl von Clausewitz
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.
Carl von Clausewitz
I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together.
Carl von Clausewitz
