Karl Von Clausewitz

War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering.

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

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.

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

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

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

War is the province of danger.

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

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

Politics is the womb in which war develops.