Carl von Clausewitz Quotes - Page 3

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.

There is only one decisive victory: the last.

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

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

The only situation a commander can know fully is his own: his opponent's he can know only from unreliable intelligence.

Whoever does great things with small means has successfully reached the goal.

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

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

Politics is the womb in which war develops.

A general in time of war is constantly bombarded by reports both true and false; by errors arising from fear or negligence or hastiness; by disobedience born of right or wrong interpretations, of ill will; of a proper or mistaken sense of duty; of laziness; or of exhaustion; and by accident that nobody could have foreseen. In short, he is exposed to countless impressions, most of them disturbing, few of them encouraging. ... If a man were to yield to these pressures, he would never complete an operation.

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

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

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.

Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.

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

The more a leader is in the habit of demanding from his men, the surer he will be that his demands will be answered.

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.

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.

Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.

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

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.

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

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

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

Blood is the price of victory