Quotes & Sayings About Clausewitz

Where absolute superiority is not attainable, you must produce a relative one at the decisive point by making skillful use ofwhat you have. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Politics is the womb in which war develops. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Courage, above all things, is the first quality of a warrior. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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

To achieve victory we must mass our forces at the hub of all power and movement. The enemy's center of gravity — Carl Von Clausewitz

War is the province of chance. in no other sphere of human activity must such a margin be left for this intruder. it increases the uncertainty of every circumstance and deranges the course of events. — Carl Von Clausewitz

The probability of direct confrontation increases with the aggressiveness of the enemy. So, rather than try to outbid the enemy with complicated schemes, one should, on the contrary, try to outbid him in simplicity — Carl Von Clausewitz

An intellectual instinct which extracts the essence from the phenomena of life, as a bee sucks honey from a flower. In addition to study and reflections, life itself serves as a source. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Knowledge must become capability. — Carl Von Clausewitz

In war, while everything is simple, even the simplest thing is difficult. Difficulties accumulate and produce frictions which no one can comprehend who has not seen war. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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 ... — Carl Von Clausewitz

War is merely the continuation of politics by other means — Carl Von Clausewitz

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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

Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult — Carl Von Clausewitz

If, adhering closely to the absolute, we try to avoid all difficulties by a stroke of the pen, and insist with logical strictness that in every case the extreme must be the object, and the utmost effort must be exerted in that direction, such a stroke of the pen would be a mere paper law, not by any means adapted to the real world. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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

There is only one decisive victory: the last. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

War is the province of danger and therefore courage above all things is the first quality of a warrior, von Clausewitz maintained. — Joe Haldeman

Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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

As each man's strength gives out, as it no longer responds to his will, the inertia of the whole gradually comes to rest on the commander's will alone. The ardor of his spirit must rekindle the flame of purpose in all others; his inward fire must revive their hope. — Carl Von Clausewitz

By 'intelligence' we mean every sort of information about the enemy and his country - the basis, in short, of our own plans and operations. — Carl Von Clausewitz

... a strong character is one that will not be unbalanced by the most powerful emotions — Carl Von Clausewitz

Rather than comparing [war] to art we could more accurately compare it to commerce, which is also a conflict of human interests and activities; and it is still closer to politics, which in turn may be considered as a kind of commerce on a larger scale. — Carl Von Clausewitz

War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

The conqueror is always a lover of peace; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Carl von Clausewitz, a nineteenth-century Prussian general and military theorist, had said that war was nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means. Similarly, the famous observation of French politician Charles Maurice de Talleyrand that war is much too serious a thing to be left to military men is eternally valid. — T.V. Rajeswar

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Strategy can therefore never take its hand from the work for a moment. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Action in war is like movement in a resistant element. Just as the simplest and most natural of movements, walking, cannot easily be performed in water, so in war, it is difficult for normal efforts to achieve even moderate results. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Character is fate, the Greeks believed. A hundred years of German philosophy went into the making of this decision in which the seed of self-destruction lay embedded, waiting for its hour. The voice was Schlieffen's, but the hand was the hand of Fichte who saw the German people chosen by Providence to occupy the supreme place in the history of the universe, of Hegel who saw them leading the world to a glorious destiny of compulsory Kultur, of Nietzsche who told them that Supermen were above ordinary controls, of Treitschke who set the increase of power as the highest moral duty of the state, of the whole German people, who called their temporal ruler the "All-Highest." What made the Schlieffen plan was not Clausewitz and the Battle of Cannae, but the body of accumulated egoism which suckled the German people and created a nation fed on "the desperate delusion of the will that deems itself absolute." The — Barbara W. Tuchman

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

In war, more than anywhere else in the world, things happen differently from what we had expected, and look differently when near from what they did at a distance. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Close combat, man to man, is plainly to be regarded as the real basis of combat. — Carl Von Clausewitz

History had no lessons or rules to offer the student, it could only broaden his understanding and strengthen his critical judgment. — Carl Von Clausewitz

A conqueror is always a lover of peace. — 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

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Clausewitz, a dead Prussian, and Norman Angell, a living if misunderstood professor, had combined to fasten the short-war concept upon the European mind. Quick, decisive victory was the German orthodoxy; — Barbara W. Tuchman

But everything takes a different shape when we pass from abstractions to reality. In the former, everything must be subject to optimism, and we must imagine the one side as well as the other striving after perfection and even attaining it. Will this ever take place in reality? — Carl Von Clausewitz

Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty and chance. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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 ... — Carl Von Clausewitz

If our opponent is to be made to comply with our will, we must place him in a situation which is more oppressive to him than the sacrifice which we demand; but the disadvantages of this position must naturally not be of a transitory nature, at least in appearance, otherwise the enemy, instead of yielding, will hold out, in the prospect of a change for the better. — Carl Von Clausewitz

While von Clausewitz said, 'War is the continuation of policy (politics) by other means,' when considering the welfare of our men and women in uniform, their families, our veterans and survivors, don't let politics drive your decisions. — Joe Heck

The great uncertainty of all data in war is because all action, to a certain extent, planned in a mere twilight - like the effect of a fog - gives things exaggerated dimensions and unnatural appearance. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

To secure peace is to prepare for war. — Carl Von Clausewitz

There are times when the utmost daring is the height of wisdom. — Carl Von Clausewitz

One might almost say, to adapt von Clausewitz, that modern warfare is PR by other means. And war-winning strategies mean that modern armies most stop treating their communications operations as secondary assignments or (as still too often happens) dumping grounds for officers who have failed at everything else - but as missions absolutely essential to success. — David Frum

[ ... ] to introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity — Carl Von Clausewitz

The Statesman who, knowing his instrument to be ready, and seeing War inevitable, hesitates to strike first is guilty of a crime against his country. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

As long as the enemy is not defeated, he may defeat me; then I shall be no longer my own master; he will dictate the law to me as I did to him. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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

Only great and general battles can produce great results — Carl Von Clausewitz

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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

Savage peoples are ruled by passion, civilized peoples by the mind. The difference lies not in the respective natures of savagery and civilization, but in their attendant circumstances, institutions, and so forth. The difference, therefore, does not operate in every sense, but it does in most of them. Even the most civilized peoples, in short, can be fired with passionate hatred for each other. — Carl Von Clausewitz

War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost limits. — Carl Von Clausewitz

We maintain, on the contrary, that war is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means. We deliberately use the phrase "with the addition of other means" because we also want to make it clear that war in itself does not suspend political intercourse or change it into something entirely different. In essentials that intercourse continues, irrespective of the means it employs. — Carl Von Clausewitz

In war the will is directed at an animate object that reacts. — Carl Von Clausewitz

War is a total social phenomenon. In this respect, Clausewitz's analysis is a precursor of Durkheim's sociology. Clausewitz has things to teach us about "mass" violence and contagion. — Rene Girard

If Clausewitz is right, no one should develop a strategy without taking into account the effects of organizational friction. Yet we continue to be surprised and frustrated when it manifests itself. We tend to think everything has gone wrong when in fact everything has gone normally. — Stephen Bungay

If the mind is to emerge unscathed from this relentless struggle with the unforeseen, 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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish by that test the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Anything that protracted a campaign Clausewitz condemned. "Gradual reduction" of the enemy, or a war of attrition, he feared like the pit of hell. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Pity the theory which sets itself in opposition to the mind! It cannot repair this contradiction by any humility, and the humbler it is so much the sooner will ridicule and contempt drive it from real life. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Whoever does great things with small means has successfully reached the goal. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Intelligence alone is not courage, we often see that the most intelligent people are irresolute. Since in the rush of events a man is governed by feelings rather than by thought, the intellect needs to arouse the quality of courage, which then supports and sustains it in action. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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

The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy. — Carl Von Clausewitz

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

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Heeding Clausewitz's warning that military plans which leave no room for the unexpected can lead to disaster, the Germans with infinite care had attempted to provide for every contingency. Their staff officers, trained at maneuvers and at war-college desks to supply the correct solution for any given set of circumstances, were expected to cope with the unexpected. Against that elusive, that mocking and perilous quantity, every precaution had been taken except one - flexibility. While — Barbara W. Tuchman

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

Given the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity — Carl Von Clausewitz

It should be noted that the seeds of wisdom that are to bear fruit in the intellect are sown less by critical studies and learned monographs than by insights, broad impressions, and flashes of intuition. — Carl Von Clausewitz

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Theory must also take into account the human element; it must accord a place to courage, to boldness, even to rashness. — Carl Von Clausewitz

one of the Library's mottos was borrowed directly from the great military thinker Clausewitz: no strategy ever survived contact with the enemy. Or, in the vernacular, Things Will Go Wrong. Be Prepared. She — Genevieve Cogman

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

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

War is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter. — Carl Von Clausewitz

Prince Andrei recognized Wolzogen and Clausewitz, accompanied by a Cossack. They passed close by, continuing to converse, and Pierre and Andrei involuntarily heard the following phrases: "Der Krieg muss im Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nicht genug Preis geben,"* said one. "O ja," said the other voice. — Leo Tolstoy

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. — Carl Von Clausewitz