Carl von Clausewitz Quotes

The Artillery Barrage: The last reasoning of Kings.

When [men] go to war, what they want is to impose on their enemies the victor's will and call it peace.

War is the supreme form of prestige.

In his fairy dreams of war [Thaddeus] always made conquest the sure end of his battles.

The object of war is victory; that of victory is conquest; and that of conquest preservation.

I don't think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.

The end of war is to procure by force the justice which cannot otherwise be obtained.

Why should fortune have made the Huns victorious over so many nations unless it where to prepare them for the joy of this conflict?

Anybody who has experienced war will never want to do it again unless they have to. But if we’re going to do it, we have to be damn good at it.

Armies for the preservation of peace do not exist; they exist only for the triumphant exertion of war.

Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win.

What the country needs is the annihilation of the enemy.

If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight.

No leader, however great, can long continue unless he wins battles. The battle decides all.

There are no manifestos like cannon and musketry.

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

Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me; but if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted.

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

Whoever has an army has power and that war decides everything.

For WAR, consisteth not in Battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to content by Battle is sufficiently known.... So the nature of War, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE.

War is the science of destruction.

For the most part, everybody who fights in war fights to survive.

Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.

War is the ultimate tool of politics.

Nobody knows through how many thousands of years fighting men have made a place for themselves while the weak and peaceable have gone to the wall.