Carl von Clausewitz Quotes

In war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes.

It's impossible to know what happens in the fog of war.

War is the realm of uncertainty; three-quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. ... war is the realm of chance. No other human activity gives it greater scope; no other has such incessant and varied dealings with this intruder. Chance makes everything more uncertain and interferes with the whole course of events.

War is...a trinity of violence, chance, and reason.

War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.

This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.

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

Nowhere are our calculations more frequently upset than in war.

The events of war are subject to great uncertainty.

Wars: You know how you start, but you never know how you end.

I don't ever want to tie a song in a little bow. Life doesn't work that way, and war doesn't ever work that way.

There's never any guarantee at war.

I know of nothing more exciting than war.

In war more than anywhere else, things do not turn out as we expect.

War is a lot of things and it's useless to pretend that exciting isn't one of them. (pg. 144)

In war trivial causes produce momentous events.

This is a war universe. War all the time. There may be other universes, but ours seems to be based on war and games.

War makes early risers of us all.

War is an unpredictable beast. Once unleashed, it runs like a rabid dog, ravening friend or foe alike. It can drag on for years, a slow attrition of nerve and fortitude, or be over in one brilliant flash, an extravagant conflagration of flame and blood and waste.

To me, you can't win. You can't win. There's a war in Iraq; there's no way that they're ending that. The war in Afghanistan is still going on. There's no way that's going to end anytime soon. You can complain about it, you can throw rocks at it, but you really have to come to the conclusion that this is a really twisted place sometimes and some stuff you're not going to win.

In war, the chief incalculable is the human will.

In war, important events result from trivial causes.

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

In war there are none but particular cases; everything has there an individual nature; nothing ever repeats itself. In the first place, the data of a military problem are but seldom certain; they are never final . Everything is in a constant state of change and reshaping.

If war was hell and only hell and there were no other colors in the palate I don't think people would continue to make war.