Top 164 Quotes & Sayings by Carl von Clausewitz - Page 3

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.

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.

Architects and painters know precisely what they are about as long as they deal with material phenomena.... But when they come to the aesthetics of their work, when they aim at a particular effect on the mind or on the senses, the rules dissolve into nothing but vague ideas.

If we read history with an open mind, we cannot fail to conclude that, among all the military virtues, the energetic conduct of war has always contributed most to glory and success.

War is a conflict of great interests which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that is it different from others.

If you entrench yourself behind strong fortifications, you compel the enemy seek a solution elsewhere.

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.

Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. The difficulties accumulate and end by producing a kind of friction that is inconceivable unless one has experienced war. ... Countless minor incidents - the kind you can never really foresee - combine to lower the general level of performance, so that one always falls short of the intended goal.

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.

Politics is the womb in which war develops - where its outlines already exist in their hidden rudimentary form, like the characteristics of living creatures in their embryos.

Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.

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.

...as man under pressure tends to give in to physical and intellectual weakness, only great strength of will can lead to the objective.

A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.

We must, therefore, be confident that the general measures we have adopted will produce the results we expect. most important in this connection is the trust which we must have in our lieutenants. consequently, it is important to choose men on whom we can rely and to put aside all other considerations. if we have made appropriate preparations, taking into account all possible misfortunes, so that we shall not be lost immediately if they occur, we must boldly advance into the shadows of uncertainty.

War is merely a continuation of politics.

In war everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are difficult.

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.

Friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper.

A prince or general can best demonstrate his genius by managing a campaign exactly to suit his objectives and his resources, doing neither too much nor too little.

War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale.

War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.

We must evaluate the political sympathies of other states and the effect war may have on them. To assess these things in all their ramifications and diversity is plainly a colossal task. Rapid and correct appraisal of them clearly calls for the intuition of a genius; to master all this complex mass by sheer methodical examination is obviously impossible. Bonaparte was quite right when he said that Newton himself would quail before the algebraic problems it could pose.

Battles decide everything.

No other human activity is so continuously or universally bound up with chance. And through the element of chance, guesswork and luck come to play a great part in war.

The heart of France lies between Brussels and Paris.

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.

Modern wars are seldom fought without hatred between nations; this serves more or less as a substitute for hatred between individuals.

War is only caused through the political intercourse of governments and nations - war is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse with an admixture of other means.

But the main point is that soldiers, after fighting for some time, are apt to be like burned-out cinders. They have shot off their ammunition, their numbers have been diminished, their strength and their morale are drained, and possibly their courage has vanished as well. As an organic whole, quite apart from their loss in numbers, they are far from being what they were before the action; and thus the amount of reserves spent is an accurate measure on the loss of morale.

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.

Knowledge in war is very simple, being concerned with so few subjects, and only with their final results at that. But this does not make its application easy.

The deduction of effect from cause is often blocked by some insuperable extrinsic obstacle: the true causes may be quite unknown. Nowhere in life is this so common as in war, where the facts are seldom fully known and the underlying motives even less so.

Where execution is dominant, as it is in the individual events of a war whether great or small, then intellectual factors are reduced to a minimum.

War is the province of chance. In no sphere of human activity is such a margin to be left for this intruder. It increases the uncertainty of every circumstance, and deranges the course of events.

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.

Only great and general battles can produce great results

War is the realm of uncertainty; three-quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. ... war is the realm of chance. No other human activity gives it greater scope; no other has such incessant and varied dealings with this intruder. Chance makes everything more uncertain and interferes with the whole course of events.

The bloody solution of the crisis, the effort for the destruction of the enemy's forces, is the first-born son of war.

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.

War should never be thought of as something autonomous, but always as an instrument of policy.

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.

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.

In war the will is directed at an animate object that reacts.