209 Quotes by Carl von Clausewitz

Desperate affairs require desperate remedies.

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

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

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.

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.

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

There is only one decisive victory: the last.

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 is merely a continuation of politics,