Carl Von Clausewitz Quotes

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.

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

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.

The very nature of interactions is bound to make it unpredictable.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

...in war, the advantages and disadvantages of a single action could only be determined by the final balance.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?

All thinking is indeed Art. Where the logician draws the line, where the premises stop which are the result of cognition - where judgment begins, there Art begins. But more than this even the perception of the mind is judgment again, and consequently Art; and at last, even the perception by the senses as well.

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.

To secure peace is to prepare for 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.

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

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

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.

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.

Essentally combat is an expression of hostile feelings. But in the large-scale combat that we call war hostile feelings often have become merely hostile intentions. At any rate, there are usually no hostile feelings between individuals. Yet such emotions can never be completely absent from war. Modern wars are seldom fought without hatred between nations; this serves as a more or less substitute for the hatred between individuals. Even when there is no natural hatred and no animosity to start with, the fighting itself will stir up hostile feelings: violence committed on superior orders will stir up the desire for revenge and retaliation against the perpetrator rather than against the powers that ordered the action. It is only human (or animal, if you like), but it is a fact.

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.

Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity.

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 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.

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

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 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.

War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering.

A conqueror is always a lover of peace.

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.

All war presupposes human weakness and seeks to exploit it.

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

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

The best strategy is always to be very strong.

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

To discover how much of our resources must be mobilized for war, we must first examine our political aim and that of the enemy. We must gauge the strength and situation of the opposite state. We must gauge the character and abilities of its government and people and do the same in regard to our own. Finally, we must evaluate the political sympathies of other states and the effect the war may have on them.

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.

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.

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

War is politics by other means.

Strategy can therefore never take its hand from the work for a moment.

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.

...vanity is content with the appearance alone

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.

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

The commander's talents are given greatest scope in rough hilly country. Mountains allow him too little real command over his scattered units and he is unable to control them all; in open country, control is a simple matter and does not test his ability to the fullest.

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.

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

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

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

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

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.

With uncertainty in one scale, courage and self-confidence should be thrown into the other to correct the balance. The greater they are, the greater the margin that can be left for accidents.

Any complex activity, if it is to be carried on with any degree of virtuosity, calls for appropriate gifts of intellect and temperament. If they are outstanding and reveal themselves in exceptional achievements, their possessor is called a 'genius'.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.

The heart of France lies between Brussels and Paris.

Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank.

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.

The first and most important rule to observe ... is to use our entire forces with the utmost energy. The second rule is to concentrate our power as much as possible against that section where the chief blows are to be delivered and to incur disadvantages elsewhere, so that our chances of success may increase at the decisive point. The third rule is never to waste time. Finally, the fourth rule is to follow up our successes with the utmost energy. Only pursuit of the beaten enemy gives the fruits of victory.

[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.

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.

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.

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.

The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.

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

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

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

War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

War is ... a trinity of violence, chance, and reason.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Only great and general battles can produce great results

Self-reliance is the best defence against the pressures of the moment.

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

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

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 ...