Carl von Clausewitz

"Obstinacy is a fault of temperament. Stubbornness and intolerance of contradiction result from a special kind of egotism, which elevates above everything else the pleasure of its autonomous intellect,…"

"Where execution is dominant, as it is in the individual events of a war whether great or small, then intellectual factors are reduced to a minimum."

"A prince or general can best demonstrate his genius by managing a campaign exactly to suit his objectives and his resources, doing neither too much nor too little."

"...only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent."

"A conqueror is always a lover of peace ; he would like to make his entry into our state unopposed; in order to prevent this, we must choose war, and therefore also make preparations, that is in other …"

"The state of crisis is the real war; the equilibrium is nothing but its reflex."

"If we do not learn to regard a war, and the separate campaigns of which it is composed, as a chain of linked engagements each leading to the next, but instead succumb to the idea that the capture of c…"

"War therefore is an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfill our will."