“The invention of gunpowder and the constant improvement of firearms are enough in themselves to show that the advance of civilization has done nothing practical to alter or deflect the impulse to destroy the enemy, which is central to the very idea of war.”

On War (1832), Book 1

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Carl von Clausewitz68

German-Prussian soldier and military theorist 1780–1831

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“The invention of gunpowder and the constant improvement of firearms are enough in themselves to show that the advance of civilization has done nothing practical to alter or deflect the impulse to destroy the enemy, which is central to the very idea of war.”

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Carl von Clausewitz68

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