155 Quotes by Carl von Clausewitz

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

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

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.

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.

To secure peace is to prepare for war.

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.

"Tactics is the art of using troops in battle;

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strategy is the art of using battles to win the war"

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.

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

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Knowledge must become capability.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 best form of defense is attack.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.

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 best strategy is always to be very strong.

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

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

Politics is the womb in which war develops.

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

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.

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'.

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.

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

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

Blood is the price of victory

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale.

All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.

Only great and general battles can produce great results

A conqueror is always a lover of peace.

The bloody solution of the crisis, the effort for the destruction of the enemy's forces, is the first-born son of war.

No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy

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

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

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.

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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination. The bloody solution of the crisis, the effort for the destruction of the enemy's forces, is the first-born son of war. Only great and general battles can produce great results. Blood is the price of victory.

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.

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

There is only one decisive victory: the last.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Boldness will be at a disadvantage only in an encounter with deliberate caution, which may be considered bold in its own right, and is certainly just as powerful and effective; but such cases are rare.

War is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter.

War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering.

The deduction of effect from cause is often blocked by some insuperable extrinsic obstacle: the true causes may be quite unknown. Nowhere in life is this so common as in war, where the facts are seldom fully known and the underlying motives even less so.

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

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

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.

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

War is merely a continuation of politics.

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.

War is politics by other means.

Desperate affairs require desperate remedies.

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

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.

Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank.

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

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

Just as some plants bear fruit only if they don't shoot up too high, so in practical arts the leaves and flowers of theory must be pruned and the plant kept close to its proper soil- experience.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

All war presupposes human weakness and seeks to exploit it.

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

Battles decide everything.

Friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper.

If we do not learn to regard a war, and the separate campaigns of which it is composed, as a chain of linked engagements each leading to the next, but instead succumb to the idea that the capture of certain geographical points or the seizure of undefended provinces are of value in themselves, we are liable to regard them as windfall profits.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

War is the realm of uncertainty; three-quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. ... war is the realm of chance. No other human activity gives it greater scope; no other has such incessant and varied dealings with this intruder. Chance makes everything more uncertain and interferes with the whole course of events.

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.

The difficulty of accurate recognition constitutes one of the most serious sources of friction in war, by making things appear entirely different from what one had expected.

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.

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.

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

War is the province of danger.

War should never be thought of as something autonomous, but always as an instrument of policy.