Karl von Clausewitz quote: "War is the province of chance. In no other sphere of human activity must such a margin be left for this intruder. It increases the uncertainty of every circumstance and deranges the course of events."

War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political inter...
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of ...
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fa...
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of politics by other means.
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

The first and most important rule to observe...is to use our entire forces with the utmost energy. T...
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Lastly, the great uncertainty of all data in War is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, ...
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

To secure peace is to prepare for war.
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering.
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

The more a general is accustomed to place heavy demands on his soldiers, the more he can depend on t...
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

War is the province of danger.
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

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

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

Savage peoples are ruled by passion, civilized peoples by the mind. The difference lies not in the r...
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

The difficulty of accurate recognition constitutes one of the most serious sources of friction in wa...
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

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

War is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means.
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be consid...
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often ten...
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

What this task requires in the way of higher intellectual gifts is a sense of unity and a power of j...
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

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

If the mind is to emerge unscathed from this relentless struggle with the unforeseen, two qualities ...
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. The difficulties accumulate and en...
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

War is the province of danger.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

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

War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political inter...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must be...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

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

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

Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fa...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Politics is the womb in which war develops.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

A conqueror is always a lover of peace.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

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

All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often ten...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

To secure peace is to prepare for war.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be consid...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

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

The more a general is accustomed to place heavy demands on his soldiers, the more he can depend on t...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

War is the continuation of politics by other means.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some gl...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

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

The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

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

If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of ...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Responsibility and danger do not tend to free or stimulate the average person's mind- rather the con...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Savage peoples are ruled by passion, civilized peoples by the mind. The difference lies not in the ...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Just as some plants bear fruit only if they don't shoot up too high, so in practical arts the leaves...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

It should be noted that the seeds of wisdom that are to bear fruit in the intellect are sown less by...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

The aggressor is always peace-loving; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

The fact that slaughter [battle] is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Je größerer Art die Maßnahmen werden, um so weniger kann man damit überraschen.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Our knowledge of circumstances has increased, but our uncertainty, instead of having diminished, has...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

If the mind is to emerge unscathed from this relentless struggle with the unforeseen, two qualities ...
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

I have been a Professor Emeritus since 1958, and have continued my scientific studies.
KARL VON FRISCH

I received my doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1910.
KARL VON FRISCH

I studied at a grammar school and later at the University of Vienna in the Faculty of Medicine.
KARL VON FRISCH

After the first exams, I switched to the Faculty of Philosophy and studied Zoology in Munich and Vie...
KARL VON FRISCH

He who can take advice is sometimes superior to him who can give it.
KARL VON KNEBEL

To resist the frigidity of old age one must combine the body, the mind and the heart - and to keep t...
KARL VON BONSTETTEN

The bee's life is like a magic well: the more you draw from it, the more it fills with water
KARL VON FRISCH

Coercion may prevent many transgressions; but it robs even actions which are legal of a part of thei...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

However great an evil immorality may be, we must not forget that it is not without its beneficial co...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

If it were possible to make an accurate calculation of the evils which police regulations occasion, ...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united.
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

Providence certainly does not favor just certain individuals, but the deep wisdom of its counsel, in...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

Freedom is but the possibility of a various and indefinite activity; while government, or the exerci...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with rest; but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it ...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

We cannot assume the injustice of any actions which only create offense, and especially as regards r...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

Wherever the citizen becomes indifferent to his fellows, so will the husband be to his wife, and the...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

If we glance at the most important revolutions in history, we see at once that the greatest number o...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

The sensual and spiritual are linked together by a mysterious bond, sensed by our emotions, though h...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

However great an evil immorality may be, we must not forget that it is not without its beneficial ...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

Man is more disposed to domination than freedom; and a structure of dominion not only gladdens the e...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

War seems to be one of the most salutary phenomena for the culture of human nature; and it is not wi...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

How a person masters his fate is more important than what his fate is.
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

If it were not somewhat fanciful to suppose that every human excellence is presented, as it were, in...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we me...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take with us
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

It is usually more important how a man meets his fate than what it is.
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

The sensual and spiritual are linked together by a mysterious bond, sensed by our emotions, though h...
KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

Let them stew in their own grease (or juice). - Karl Otto von Schonhausen Bismarck,
KARL OTTO VON SCHONHAUSEN BISMARCK

That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.
KARL OTTO VON SCHONHAUSEN BISMARCK

The Prussian Sovereigns are in possession of a crown not be the grace of the people, but by God's g...
KARL OTTO VON SCHONHAUSEN BISMARCK

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.
KARL OTTO VON SCHONHAUSEN BISMARCK

A great unrecognized incapacity. [Fr., Une grande incapacite inconnue.]
KARL OTTO VON SCHONHAUSEN BISMARCK

You see things; and you say, "Why"; But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"
KARL OTTO VON SCHONHAUSEN BISMARCK

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.
KARL OTTO VON SCHONHAUSEN BISMARCK

[The great questions of the day] are not decided by speeches and majority votes, but by blood and i...
KARL OTTO VON SCHONHAUSEN BISMARCK

Numerous politicians have seized absolute power and muzzled the press. Never in history has the pr...
KARL OTTO VON SCHONHAUSEN BISMARCK

[The opposition Press] which is in the hands of malecontents who have failed in their career.
KARL OTTO VON SCHONHAUSEN BISMARCK

We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world. [Ger., Wir Deutschen furchten Gott, sonst aber...
KARL OTTO VON SCHONHAUSEN BISMARCK

Let us put Germany, so to speak, in the saddle! you will see that she can ride. [Ger., Setzen wi...
KARL OTTO VON SCHONHAUSEN BISMARCK

The king reigns but does not govern. [Ger., Der Konig herrscht aber regiert nicht.]
KARL OTTO VON SCHONHAUSEN BISMARCK

In thy face have I seen the eternal.
BARON CHRISTIAN KARL JOSIAS VON BUNSEN

Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet,...
KARL MARX

The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its ...
KARL MARX

It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its ...
KARL MARX

History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real...
KARL MARX

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
KARL MARX

Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, ...
KARL MARX

If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.
KARL MARX

The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.
KARL MARX

Democracy is the road to socialism.
KARL MARX

Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.
KARL MARX

The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course crea...
KARL MARX

Without doubt, machinery has greatly increased the number of well-to-do idlers.
KARL MARX

There is a specter haunting Europe, the specter of Communism.
KARL MARX

Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from soc...
KARL MARX

Religion is the opium of the masses.
KARL MARX

The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but...
KARL MARX

A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism.
KARL MARX

The English have all the material requisites for the revolution. What they lack is the spirit of gen...
KARL MARX

Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.
KARL MARX

Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.
KARL MARX

The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.
KARL MARX

Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of it...
KARL MARX

For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.
KARL MARX

Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.
KARL MARX

I've never understood the 'things to do before you die' idea. If I was ill, I'd be i...
KARL PILKINGTON

With evolution, things are always changing, so I sort of think: Should we all be growing three heads...
KARL PILKINGTON

At the end of the day, teachers aren't going to mess about trying to make me into an Einstein, &...
KARL PILKINGTON

It's not a joke: I really do like being at home.
KARL PILKINGTON

I don't know what the future is, but you just do it whilst it's there, don't you?
KARL PILKINGTON

I just sort of go along and say what I think -and that's all you can do in life, really.
KARL PILKINGTON

The other day I was thinking - because I get a lot of headaches - I was wondering whether the head s...
KARL PILKINGTON

We'll all die out eventually. Humans will be gone. And all I'm saying is, when people worry ...
KARL PILKINGTON

But I'm not an idiot. At the end of the day, I've learned a lot.
KARL PILKINGTON

For me, a good holiday is about value for money rather than things to see.
KARL PILKINGTON

Everyone is living for everyone else now. They're doing stuff so they can tell other people abou...
KARL PILKINGTON

Parrots have gone a bit quiet since pirates have gone.
KARL PILKINGTON

A slug is always on its own. It's a lonely insect.
KARL PILKINGTON

I sometimes wonder how we're short of cod. There's gonna be a load deep down that are hiding...
KARL PILKINGTON

People who live in a glass house have to answer the door.
KARL PILKINGTON

I've done some luxury flying, which is brilliant. It has only happened once or twice, but it was...
KARL PILKINGTON

People who live in glass houses... have to answer the door.
KARL PILKINGTON

It would be spiteful to put a Jellyfish in a trifle.
KARL PILKINGTON

They say it all started out with a big bang. But, what I wonder is, was it a big bang or did it just...
KARL PILKINGTON

I'd rather live in a cave with a view of a palace than live in a palace with a view of a cave.
KARL PILKINGTON

The product of mental labor - science - always stands far below its value, because the labor-time ne...
KARL MARX

Statistics is the grammar of science.
KARL PEARSON

I never go anywhere. I do sketches and make phone calls, and people visit. It's more fun to come...
KARL LAGERFELD

But, look, Washington is a town that creates myths for its own existence and its own amusement, and ...
KARL ROVE

You may be right that people say: 'You know what, we had Obama. He was inexperienced. The guy ha...
KARL ROVE

Mr. Obama has an ingenious approach to job losses: He describes them as job gains.
KARL ROVE

The difficulty for Mr. Obama will be when the public sees where his decisions lead - higher inflatio...
KARL ROVE

Mr. Obama denounced the $2.3 trillion added to the national debt on Mr. Bush's watch as 'def...
KARL ROVE

In his first 100 days, Mr. Obama has put the fate of his presidency in the hands of House Speaker Na...
KARL ROVE

For a person who promised hope and civility in politics, Mr. Obama has shown a borderline obsessiven...
KARL ROVE

Many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview.
KARL ROVE

Somebody gets to be smart and somebody gets to be dumb. If we win, it'll be because of the presi...
KARL ROVE

I mean, if you have to wake up in the morning to be validated by the editorial page of the New York ...
KARL ROVE

I believe in traditional marriage.
KARL ROVE

Mr. Obama plans to boost federal spending 25 percent while nearly tripling the national debt over 10...
KARL ROVE

And not only that, I also have the MacBook Air which is really cool. Even my wife is jealous of my M...
KARL ROVE

What Mr. Obama wants in a nominee isn't really 'empathy' and 'understanding.' He...
KARL ROVE

The Tea Party movement is a wide and diverse group. It will hurt the Republican Party if some elemen...
KARL ROVE

Alinsky's 1971 book, 'Rules for Radicals,' is a favorite of the Obamas. Michele Obama qu...
KARL ROVE

Memo to White House: Calling voters stupid is not a winning strategy.
KARL ROVE

Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savager...
KARL ROVE

I think it's dawning on some Democrats that obstructing the Patriot Act, like they've been o...
KARL ROVE

As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vo...
KARL ROVE

It's not comfortable for me to write about my family. I'm not comfortable writing about me.
KARL ROVE

Grace can and does have a history.
KARL RAHNER

What Christ gives us is quite explicit if his own words are interpreted according to their Aramaic m...
KARL RAHNER

Grace is everywhere as an active orientation of all created reality toward God.
KARL RAHNER

The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.
KARL RAHNER

How often I have found that we grow to maturity not by doing what we like, but by doing what we shou...
KARL RAHNER

Thus in such a Labour Party there can be no question of independent policy.
KARL RADEK

The mass of workers, as yet non-Socialist, is retarded in its development towards Socialism.
KARL RADEK

If a Labour movement, on a bourgeois basis, has hitherto existed in the country where the new moveme...
KARL RADEK

Every social organisation which is rooted in life still lasts a long time, even after the conditions...
KARL RADEK

Without Socialism the working class is a heterogeneous mixture of different categories, some of whic...
KARL RADEK

The enmity of such a party towards Socialism does not mean that the members are only prejudiced agai...
KARL RADEK

A Labour party is not a debating club, it is a party of action.
KARL RADEK

In general, if signs of sectarianism do appear in a Socialist Party, these are only the products of ...
KARL RADEK

Piecemeal social engineering resembles physical engineering in regarding the ends as beyond the prov...
KARL POPPER

We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom c...
KARL POPPER

Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
KARL POPPER

There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life....
KARL POPPER

Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
KARL POPPER

The mathematician, carried along on his flood of symbols, dealing apparently with purely formal trut...
KARL PEARSON

I was given the ability to create stories and characters. That's my part of the long chain of wr...
KARL MARLANTES

I began writing 'Matterhorn' in 1975 and for more than 30 years I kept working on my novel i...
KARL MARLANTES

'The Odyssey' is the great tale, and I was really taken by 'The Iliad,' so I dig int...
KARL MARLANTES

Really important books to me are the classics. I try very hard to read them well - you know, especia...
KARL MARLANTES

I don't want any romantics to go into the military. I'm not a pacifist. I think we need a mi...
KARL MARLANTES

I knew many Marines had done brave deeds that no one saw and for which they got no medals at all. I ...
KARL MARLANTES

In the military I could exercise the power of being automatically respected because of the medals on...
KARL MARLANTES

And I think that it's - the military has actually made improvements, so people are considering p...
KARL MARLANTES

I mean, if you're proud of what you've done when you've served in the military, well the...
KARL MARLANTES

I mean... if you're raised as a decent human being, killing somebody is against every moral thin...
KARL MARLANTES

The Marine Corps taught me how to kill, but it didn't teach me how to deal with killing.
KARL MARLANTES

War is the province of chance. In no other sphere of human activity must such a margin be left for this intruder. It increases the uncertainty of every circumstance and deranges the course of events.

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Karl von Clausewitz

War is the province of chance. In no other sphere of human activity must such a margin be left for this intruder. It increases the uncertainty of every circumstance and deranges the course of events.

Karl von Clausewitz

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