Carl von Clausewitz Quotes

All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.

War is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter.

Of all the passions that inspire a man in a battle, none, we have to admit, is so powerful and so constant as the longing for honor and reknown.

Only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent.

All war presupposes human weakness and seeks to exploit it.

There are very few men-and they are the exceptions-who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment

There is nothing more common than to find considerations of supply affecting the strategic lines of a campaign and a war.

Criticism exists only to recognize the truth, not to act as judge.

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.

Great things alone can make a great mind, and petty things will make a petty mind unless a man rejects them as completely alien.

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

Be audacious and cunning in your plans, firm and persevering in their execution, determined to find a glorious end.

To achieve victory we must mass our forces at the hub of all power & movement. The enemy's 'Center of Gravity'

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

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.

Our knowledge of circumstances has increased, but our uncertainty, instead of having diminished, has only increased. The reason of this is, that we do not gain all our experience at once, but by degrees; so our determinations continue to be assailed incessantly by fresh experience; and the mind, if we may use the expression, must always be under arms.

The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.

The best strategy is always to be very strong.

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

In the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.

The best form of defense is attack.

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 regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.

Knowledge must become capability.

War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.

Timidity is the root of prudence in the majority of men.

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

The majority of people are timid by nature, and that is why they constantly exaggerate danger. all influences on the military leader, therefore, combine to give him a false impression of his opponent's strength, and from this arises a new source of indecision.

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.

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

There are cases in which the greatest daring is the greatest wisdom.

To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it.

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.

The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.

Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.

War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.

The world has a way of undermining complex plans. This is particularly true in fast moving environments. A fast moving environment can evolve more quickly than a complex plan can be adapted to it. By the time you have adapted, the target has changed.

[The cause of inaction in war] ... is the imperfection of human perception and judgment which is more pronounced in war than anywhere else. We hardly know accurately our own situation at any particular moment while the enemy's, which is concealed from us, must be deduced from very little evidence.

The side that feels the lesser urge for peace will naturally get the better bargain.

The general unreliability of all information presents a special problem in war: all action takes place, so to speak, in the twilight, which, like fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are. Whatever is hidden from full view in this feeble light has to be guessed at by talent, or simply left to chance. So once again for the lack of objective knowledge, one has to trust to talent or to luck.

The object of defense is preservation; and since it is easier to hold ground than to take it, defense is easier than attack. But defense has a passive purpose: preservation; and attack a positive one: conquest.... If defense is the stronger form of war, yet has a negative object, it follows that it should be used only so long as weakness compels, and be abandoned as soon as we are strong enough to pursue a positive object.

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.

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.

If we consider the actual basis of this information [i.e., intelligence], how unreliable and transient it is, we soon realize that war is a flimsy structure that can easily collapse and bury us in its ruins. ... Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain. This is true of all intelligence but even more so in the heat of battle, where such reports tend to contradict and cancel each other out. In short, most intelligence is false, and the effect of fear is to multiply lies and inaccuracies.

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

It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.

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.

Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.