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Your Quotes for 1 June 2005 - von Clausewitz

Karl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz was born at Burg, Magdeburg, Prussia on this day in 1780, the son of a Prussian army officer. Karl joined the Prussian army at age twelve, and immediately demonstrated strategic brilliance. He was later sent to the War College at Berlin, and after fighting Napoleon and becoming a general he returned to that institution as its administrator. It was there that he wrote Vom Kriege (On War), arguably the most influential treatise on warfare and the source of most of these quotes.

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

All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.

Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult. These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction which no man can imagine exactly who has not seen war.

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

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

Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank.
     - All from Karl von Clausewitz, 1780 - 1831

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