Top 100 Carl Von Clausewitz Quotes
#1. PRINCIPLE is likewise such a law for action, except that it has not the formal definite meaning, but is only the spirit and sense of law in order to leave the judgment more freedom of application when the diversity of the real world cannot be laid hold of under the definite form of a law.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#3. 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
#5. 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
#6. 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
#7. 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
#10. 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
#11. Given the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity
Carl Von Clausewitz
#12. 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.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#13. Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#14. Talent and genius operate outside the rules, and theory conflicts with practice.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#16. War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#17. War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#18. 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
#19. 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
#20. 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
#21. 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
#22. 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
#23. 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
#24. War is a conflict of great interests which is settled by bloodshed, and only in that is it different from others.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#25. There is nothing more common than to find considerations of supply affecting the strategic lines of a campaign and a war.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#30. 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
#31. To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#32. 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
#34. 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.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#35. 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.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#37. Whoever does great things with small means has successfully reached the goal.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#38. In the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#39. A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#40. 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
#41. Theory must also take into account the human element; it must accord a place to courage, to boldness, even to rashness.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#42. Self-reliance is the best defence against the pressures of the moment.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#43. 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.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#45. Modern wars are seldom fought without hatred between nations; this serves more or less as a substitute for hatred between individuals.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#47. Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#48. Every age has its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions and its own peculiar preconceptions.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#49. If you entrench yourself behind strong fortifications, you compel the enemy seek a solution elsewhere.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#50. [ ... ] to introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity
Carl Von Clausewitz
#51. 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
#52. 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
#53. Strategy can therefore never take its hand from the work for a moment.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#56. 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
#57. The side that feels the lesser urge for peace will naturally get the better bargain.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#59. The conqueror is always a lover of peace; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#60. 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
#61. 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
#63. Be audacious and cunning in your plans, firm and persevering in their execution, determined to find a glorious end.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#64. 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.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#66. [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.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#67. 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.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#68. As man under pressure tends to give in to physical and intellectual weakness, only great strength of will can lead to the objective.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#69. Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#70. 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.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#71. 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
#73. Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates; neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#74. The more a leader is in the habit of demanding from his men, the surer he will be that his demands will be answered.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#75. Close combat, man to man, is plainly to be regarded as the real basis of combat.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#77. There are very few men-and they are the exceptions-who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment
Carl Von Clausewitz
#79. In war, where imperfect intelligence, the threat of a catastrophe, and the number of accidents are incomparably greater than any other human endeavor, the amount of missed opportunities, so to speak, is therefore bound to be greater.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#80. 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.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#81. 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
#82. Friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper ...
Carl Von Clausewitz
#83. 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
#84. Responsibility and danger do not tend to free or stimulate the average person's mind- rather the contrary; but wherever they do liberate an individual's judgement and confidence we can be sure that we are in the presence of exceptional ability.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#86. 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.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#87. Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#88. In war everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are difficult.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#89. 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
#90. ... a strong character is one that will not be unbalanced by the most powerful emotions
Carl Von Clausewitz
#91. The only situation a commander can know fully is his own: his opponent's he can know only from unreliable intelligence.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#92. History had no lessons or rules to offer the student, it could only broaden his understanding and strengthen his critical judgment.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#93. 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.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#96. It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#97. 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
#99. 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
#100. If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.
Carl Von Clausewitz
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