Welcome to Chris Hoctor's Collection of Quotes

Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.

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.

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

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

The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.

The more a general is accustomed to place heavy demands on his soldiers, the more he can depend on their response.

War is the province of danger.

A conqueror is always a lover of peace.

Karl von Clausewitz: Politics

War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.

I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together.

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

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

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

When it is all said and done, it is really the commander's coup d'oeil, his ability to see things simply; to identify the whole business of war completely with himself, that is the essence of good generalship.

To secure peace is to prepare for war.