Carl von Clausewitz Quotes

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

“A strong character is one that will not be unbalanced by the most powerful emotions.”

“All war presupposes human weakness and seeks to exploit it.”

“Anyone who falls into the habit of thinking and expecting the best of his subordinates at all times is, for that reason alone, unsuited to command an army.”

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“If the mind is to emerge unscathed from this relentless struggle with the unforeseen, 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.”

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

“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.”

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

“Knowledge must be so absorbed into the mind that it ceases to exist in a separate, objective way.”

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

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

“No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“Politics is the womb in which war develops.”

“Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.”

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

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

“Strategy can never take its hand from the work for a moment.”

“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.”

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

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

“The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.”

“The best form of defense is attack.”