
“Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.”
On War (1832), Book 1
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Carl von Clausewitz 68
German-Prussian soldier and military theorist 1780–1831Related quotes


Speeches, Moscow Address

Statement in an interview with a reporter for the London Daily Worker (November 1962), as quoted in Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara (1998), by Jorge G. Castaneda, p. 231, 1st Vintage Books ISBN 0679759409

“There is always more spirit in attack than in defense.”
Book XXVIII, sec. 44
History of Rome

“Nobody is ever involved in an aggressive war; it's always a defensive war -- on both sides.”
Interview by Tor Wennerberg, November 1998 http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199811--.htm.
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999
Context: No individual gets up and says, I'm going to take this because I want it. He'd say, I'm going to take it because it really belongs to me and it would be better for everyone if I had it. It's true of children fighting over toys. And it's true of governments going to war. Nobody is ever involved in an aggressive war; it's always a defensive war -- on both sides.

2000s, Bureaucracy to Battlefield: 9/11 Speech, (September 11, 2001)

As quoted in Mao's Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings, 1912-49: v. 5: Toward the Second United Front, January 1935-July 1937: Revolutionary Writings, 1912-49 https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=USEvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT861 (2017), p. 861, Routledge.

“In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always.”
Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 20 (p. 359)
Context: In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always. It’s their nature. They can’t help it.

“New Rome will be destroyed by the attacks of new vandals.”
”New Vandals,” p. 65
Circling: 1978-1987 (1993), Sequence: “A Warden with No Keys”

Speech in Glasgow (10 April 1949), quoted in The Times (11 April 1949), p. 4
Prime Minister