Carl von Clausewitz Quotes
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Whoever does great things with small means has successfully reached the goal.
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Der Krieg ist nichts als eine Fortsetzung des politischen Verkehrs mit Einmischung anderer Mittel. War is merely the continuation of policy with the admixture of other means.
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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.
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Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank.
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War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.
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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.
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The Conqueror is always a lover of peace: he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.
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[...] to introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity
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War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.
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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.
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A conqueror is always a lover of peace.
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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.
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All war presupposes human weakness and seeks to exploit it.
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Self-reliance is the best defence against the pressures of the moment.
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The best form of defense is attack.
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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.
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In war more than anywhere else, things do not turn out as we expect.
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Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
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No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy
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In short, absolute, so-called mathematical, factors never find a firm basis in military calculations. From the very start, there is an interplay of possibilities, probabilities, good luck and bad, that weaves its way throughout the length and breadth of the tapestry. In the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.
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But the main point is that soldiers, after fighting for some time, are apt to be like burned-out cinders. They have shot off their ammunition, their numbers have been diminished, their strength and their morale are drained, and possibly their courage has vanished as well. As an organic whole, quite apart from their loss in numbers, they are far from being what they were before the action; and thus the amount of reserves spent is an accurate measure on the loss of morale.
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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.
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Knowing is different from doing and therefore theory must never be used as norms for a standard, but merely as aids to judgment.
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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.
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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.
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Politics is the womb in which war develops.
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Every age has its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions and its own peculiar preconceptions.
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Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.
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[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.
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In war the will is directed at an animate object that reacts.
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Carl von Clausewitz
- Born: July 1, 1780
- Died: November 16, 1831
- Occupation: Military Historian
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