Carl von Clausewitz
Carl von Clausewitz
Carl Philipp Gottfriedvon Clausewitz was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral"and political aspects of war. His most notable work, Vom Kriege, was unfinished at his death. Clausewitz was a realist in many different senses and, while in some respects a romantic, also drew heavily on the rationalist ideas of the European Enlightenment...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionSoldier
Date of Birth1 June 1780
CountryGermany
military war simple
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.
war simple doe
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.
war simple friction
Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.
mean simple doe
Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.
art war simple
In war everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are difficult.
war simple together
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.
powerful passion men
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.
self pressure moments
Self-reliance is the best defence against the pressures of the moment.
use produce absolutes
Where absolute superiority is not attainable, you must produce a relative one at the decisive point by making skillful use ofwhat you have.
capability
Knowledge must become capability.
moral force combat
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 fog three
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.
war intellectual execution
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.
war mean government
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.