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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
Strength
Measuring
Amount
Bloody
Greatest
Combat
Moral
Whoever

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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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Self-reliance is the best defence against the pressures of the moment.
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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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Only great and general battles can produce great results
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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.
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Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
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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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War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.
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War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
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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.
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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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Knowledge must become capability.
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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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The best strategy is always to be very strong.
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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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There is only one decisive victory: the last.
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Just as some plants bear fruit only if they don't shoot up too high, so in practical arts the leaves and flowers of theory must be pruned and the plant kept close to its proper soil- experience.
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