Carl von clausewitz quotes

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'.

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

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

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

The general unreliability of all information presents a special problem in war: all action takes place, so to speak, in the twilight, which, like fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are. Whatever is hidden from full view in this feeble light has to be guessed at by talent, or simply left to chance. So once again for the lack of objective knowledge, one has to trust to talent or to luck.

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.

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.

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

No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy

Boldness governed by superior intellect is the mark of a hero.

War therefore is an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.

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

A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.

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.

It is paltry philosophy if in the old-fashioned way one lays down rules and principles in total disregard of moral values . As soon as these appear one regards them as exceptions, which gives them a certain scientific status, and thus makes them into rules. Or again one may appeal to genius , which is above all rules; which amounts to admitting that rules are not only made for idiots , but are idiotic in themselves.

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.

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

The best strategy is always to be very strong.

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.

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.

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

There are very few men-and they are the exceptions-who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment

Every age has its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions and its own peculiar preconceptions.

Desperate affairs require desperate remedies.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds; it is a fallacy that must be exposed: War is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.

What do we mean by the defeat of the enemy? Simply the destruction of his forces, whether by death, injury, or any other means-either completely or enough to make him stop fighting. . . . The complete or partial destruction of the enemy must be regarded as the sole object of all engagements. . . . Direct annihilation of the enemy's forces must always be the dominant consideration.

The Conqueror is always a lover of peace: he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.

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

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

There is only one decisive victory: the last.

Our knowledge of circumstances has increased, but our uncertainty, instead of having diminished, has only increased. The reason of this is, that we do not gain all our experience at once, but by degrees; so our determinations continue to be assailed incessantly by fresh experience; and the mind, if we may use the expression, must always be under arms.

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.

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

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

In war more than anywhere else, things do not turn out as we expect.

All war presupposes human weakness and seeks to exploit it.

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.

We must, therefore, be confident that the general measures we have adopted will produce the results we expect. most important in this connection is the trust which we must have in our lieutenants. consequently, it is important to choose men on whom we can rely and to put aside all other considerations. 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.

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.

Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.

In War more than anywhere else in the world things happen differently to what we had expected, and look differently when near, to what they did at a distance.

The best form of defense is attack.

The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.

Courage, above all things, is the first quality of a warrior.

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.

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.

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.

Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Lastly, the great uncertainty of all data in War is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not unfrequently — like the effect of a fog or moonshine — gives to things exaggerated dimensions and an unnatural appearance.

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.

[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.

Savage peoples are ruled by passion, civilized peoples by the mind.

Politics is the womb in which war develops - where its outlines already exist in their hidden rudimentary form, like the characteristics of living creatures in their embryos.

Blood is the price of victory

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

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

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

The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish ... the kind of war on which they are embarking.

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

Close combat, man to man, is plainly to be regarded as the real basis of combat.

There are times when the utmost daring is the height of wisdom.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Talent and genius operate outside the rules, and theory conflicts with practice.

War is merely a continuation of politics.

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.

Knowledge must become capability.

There is nothing more common than to find considerations of supply affecting the strategic lines of a campaign and a war.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Politics is the womb in which war develops.

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

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.

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.

To secure peace is to prepare for war.

Architects and painters know precisely what they are about as long as they deal with material phenomena.... But when they come to the aesthetics of their work, when they aim at a particular effect on the mind or on the senses, the rules dissolve into nothing but vague ideas.

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.

War is politics by other means.

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

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.

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.

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.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

To achieve victory we must mass our forces at the hub of all power & movement. The enemy's 'Center of Gravity'

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

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.

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.

Tactics is the art of using troops in battle; strategy is the art of using battles to win the war

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

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