Carl von Clausewitz Quotes

That was my first lesson from Ben-Gurion. Then I saw him making peace, and I saw him making war. He mobilized me before the war. The man was a very rare combination between a real intellectual and a born leader. There is a contradiction between the two.

It is a fact that not once in all my life have I gone out for a walk. I have been taken out for walks; but that is another matter.

Our greatest leaders are neither dreamers nor dictators: They are, like Jefferson, those who articulate national aspirations yet master the mechanics of influence and know when to depart from dogma.

For 15 years of my life I smoked, I drank, I used to do drugs... but during that time, I never once thought I was going to die. But the second I set foot on a stairmaster -the second- I am sure my heart is gonna explode and blood is gonna spray out of my nose.

Clearly [Donald] Trump likes the way business executives and generals think and talk much more than policy professionals.

I think the Greeks invented sports as an antidote to philosophy.

Running is always an exercise in humility.

I think the Greeks invented sports as an antidote to philosophy. In sports there are absolute rules. It's not, What about this? What about that? Either you're safe or you're out. It's ten yards or it's not. It's in the hoop or out of the hoop. It's certain.

Intellectual tasting of life will not supersede muscular activity. If a man should consider the nicety of the passage of a piece of bread down his throat, he would starve.

Strategy was first used in Athens (508 BC) to describe the art of leadership used by the ten generals on the war council. Some argue for the more creative, human side, while others argue for the more analytic side of strategy.

No matter how enmeshed a commander becomes in the elaboration of his own thoughts, it is sometimes necessary to take the enemy into account.

No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.

Such is the constitution of man that labour may be styled its own reward; nor will any external incitements be requisite, if it be considered how much happiness is gained, and how much misery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body.

During times like these, the wise are influential.

I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.

The greatest commander is he whose intuitions most nearly happen.

I like the physicality in doing the different physical motions, being a beast.

Strategy-making is an immensely complex process involving the most sophisticated, subtle, and at times subconscious of human cognitive and social processes.

Ideas really do matter. But in any organization a good idea will only go so far unless its proponents are willing to fight the political games to get the idea adopted.

My dance move has seemingly turned into push-ups. Sometimes, especially if I've indulged a little bit in an evening, it's not out of the ordinary to find me, for some reason, doing push-ups. That seems to be my go-to dance move.

When we think back to our forefathers, with their sedentary lives of forest-chopping, railroad-building, fortune-founding, their fox-hunting and Indian taming, their prancing about in the mazurka and the polka, with their coattails flying and their bustles bouncing, to say nothing of their all-day sessions with the port and straight bourbon,... we must realize that we are a nation, not of neurasthenics, but of sissies and slow-motion sports.

I get my exercise being a pallbearer for those of my friends who believed in regular running and calisthenics.

A good general not only sees the way to victory; he also knows when victory is impossible.

An hour's hard digging is a good way of getting one's mind back in the right perspective.

People think that talking is a sign of thinking. It isn't, for the most part' on the contrary, it's a mechanical dodge of the body to relieve oneself of the strain of thinking, just as exercising the muscles helps the body to become temporarily unconscious of its weight, its pain, its weariness, and the foreknowledge of its doom.