“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.”

—  Carl von Clausewitz , book On War

On War (1832), Book 1

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The invention of gunpowder and the constant improvement of firearms are enough in themselves to show that the advance o…" by Carl von Clausewitz?
Carl von Clausewitz photo
Carl von Clausewitz 68
German-Prussian soldier and military theorist 1780–1831

Related quotes

Robert Aumann photo

“War has been with us ever since the dawn of civilization. Nothing has been more constant in history than war.”

Robert Aumann (1930) Israeli-American mathematician

Source: War and peace (2005), p. 1

Matilda Joslyn Gage photo

“The careful student of history will discover that Christianity has been of very little value in advancing civilization, but has done a great deal toward retarding it.”

Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898) American abolitionist, writer

Source: Woman, Church and State (1893), p. 539

Wendell Phillips photo

“What gunpowder did for war, the printing press has done for the mind, and the statesman is no longer clad in the steel of special education, but every reading man is his judge.”

Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer

Anti-Slavery Speech (January 1852) http://books.google.com/books?id=SCpVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA22 Published in The Works of Wendell Phillips, Street & Smith (1902), p. 22-23
1850s

Paul Karl Feyerabend photo

“The progress of science, of good science, depends on novel ideas and on intellectual freedom: science has very often been advanced by outsiders (remember that Bohr and Einstein regarded themselves as outsiders).”

Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994) Austrian-born philosopher of science

How To Defend Society Against Science (1975)

James M. McPherson photo

“The bottom line in the Civil War, after all is said and done, showed that every Confederate state was a slave state and every free state was a Union state. These facts were not a coincidence, and every Civil War soldier knew it.”

James M. McPherson (1936) American historian

North & South Magazine http://thecivilwarhomepagediscussion2824.yuku.com/forum/getrefs/id/16744/type/0 (January 2008), Vol. 10, No. 4, p. 59
2000s

Kent Hovind photo

“Where in the world did the idea come from that things left to themselves can improve with time? Who would start a crazy idea like that? This idea is the opposite of everything that we observe in the world today. For instance, all the highways in our nation today left to themselves decay, deteriorate, and fall apart. A house left to itself will become a wreck. It takes work and constant planning to make anything improve. Everything tends toward disorder.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in christian education (May 25, 1991)

Sun Tzu photo

“In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.”

Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty

Variant translations
It is best to keep one’s own state intact; to crush the enemy’s state is only second best.
Source: The Art of War, Chapter III · Strategic Attack

Steven Erikson photo

“A civilization at war chooses only the most obvious enemy, and often also the one perceived, at first, to be the most easily defeatable. But that enemy is not the true enemy, nor is it the gravest threat to that civilisation. Thus a civilization at war often chooses the wrong enemy.”

Steven Erikson book The Bonehunters

The Bonehunters (2006)

Dean Acheson photo

“Among the roles the Budget Bureau (now OMB) was that of constant critic and improver of administration in the federal executive branch. In my day this work had fallen to the products of graduate schools in civil administration. Their ideas…seemed to me theoretical nonsense.”

Dean Acheson book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), State Department Management, Leadership Perspectives

“Military doctrine is universally, and has been since the time of Napoleon, imbued with the "Spirit of the Offensive." There are some very good reasons for this, which we shall review elsewhere. As with many other ideas which have a sound basis in reason, constant and fervent reiteration has created distortions, like the attitude, for example, which regards a healthy respect for enemy capabilities as defenseminded and hence ignoble.”

Bernard Brodie (1910–1978) American nuclear strategist

Pg. 43
Strategy in the Missile Age

Related topics