Carl von Clausewitz Quotes

The more physical the activity, the less the difficulties will be. The more the activity becomes intellectual and turns into motives which exercise a determining influence on the commander's will, the more the difficulties will increase.

Whoever does great things with small means has successfully reached the goal.

Knowing is different from doing and therefore theory must never be used as norms for a standard, but merely as aids to judgment.

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

Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank.

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.

The Conqueror is always a lover of peace: he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.

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.

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.

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.

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

Whenever armed forces . . . are used, the idea of combat must be present. . . . The end for which a soldier is recruited, clothed, armed, and trained, the whole object of his sleeping, eating, drinking, and marching is simply that he should fight at the right place and the right time.

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.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.

The heart of France lies between Brussels and Paris.

War therefore is an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.

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.

To secure peace is to prepare for war.

Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.

War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering.

This tremendous friction which cannot, as in mechanics, be reduced to a few points, is everywhere in contact with chance, and brings about effects that cannot be measured just because they are largely due to chance.

Close combat, man to man, is plainly to be regarded as the real basis of combat.

However much pains may be taken to combine the soldier and the citizen in one and the same individual, whatever may be done to nationalize wars, never will it be possible to do away with the professionalism of the business; and if that cannot be done, then those who belong to it will always look upon themselves as a kind of guild, in the regulations, laws, and customs in which the "Spirit of War" finds its expression. It would be very wrong to look down upon this corporate spirit, or esprit de corps, which may and should exist more or less in every Army.

No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy

Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.

Only great and general battles can produce great results

We repeat again: strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them. Even with the violence of emotion, judgment and principle must still function like a ship’s compass, which records the slightest variations however rough the sea.

Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds; it is a fallacy that must be exposed: War is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.

After we have thought out everything carefully in advance and have sought and found without prejudice the most plausible plan, we must not be ready to abandon it at the slightest provocation. should this certainty be lacking, we must tell ourselves that nothing is accomplished in warfare without daring; that the nature of war certainly does not let us see at all times where we are going; that what is probable will always be probable though at the moment it may not seem so; and finally, that we cannot be readily ruined by a single error, if we have made reasonable preparations.

There is only one decisive victory: the last.

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.

Courage, above all things, is the first quality of a warrior.

Strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one's balance in spite of them.

War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.

The art of war in its highest point of view is policy.

If the enemy is to be coerced, you must put him in a situation that is even more unpleasant than the sacrifice you call on him to make. The hardships of the situation must not be merely transient - at least not in appearance. Otherwise, the enemy would not give in, but would wait for things to improve.

Savage peoples are ruled by passion, civilized peoples by the mind.

Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates; neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.

Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.

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.

The more a general is accustomed to place heavy demands on his soldiers, the more he can depend on their response.

The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish ... the kind of war on which they are embarking.

A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.

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.

In war more than anywhere else, things do not turn out as we expect.

There are times when the utmost daring is the height of wisdom.

Men are always more inclined to pitch their estimate of the enemy's strength too high than too low, such is human nature.

No one starts a war--or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so--without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it.