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Top 30 Martin van Creveld Quotes (2025 Update)

Martin van Creveld Quote: “We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets of our air force.”

1. “We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets of our air force.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “War is the greatest fun man can have with his pants on.”

2. “War is the greatest fun man can have with his pants on.”

— Martin van Creveld

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Martin van Creveld Quote: “Our armed forces are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that this will happen before Israel goes under.”

3. “Our armed forces are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that this will happen before Israel goes under.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “As so often in history, equality for some can only be achieved by discriminating against all the rest.”

4. “As so often in history, equality for some can only be achieved by discriminating against all the rest.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “Obviously, we don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons and I don’t know if they’re developing them, but if they’re not developing them, they’re crazy.”

5. “Obviously, we don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons and I don’t know if they’re developing them, but if they’re not developing them, they’re crazy.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “As history since Hiroshima shows, the best, perhaps the only, way to curb war is to deter it with such overwhelming force as to turn it from a struggle into suicide.”

6. “As history since Hiroshima shows, the best, perhaps the only, way to curb war is to deter it with such overwhelming force as to turn it from a struggle into suicide.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “A world without war is not in the cards.”

7. “A world without war is not in the cards.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “In the early 1990s, for example, 300 million people lived in countries where men’s life expectancy was higher than that of women. Today, the number is practically zero.”

8. “In the early 1990s, for example, 300 million people lived in countries where men’s life expectancy was higher than that of women. Today, the number is practically zero.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself.”

9. “The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “Assuming China does not become destabilized and continues to grow, it will no doubt develop a military program in proportion to its resources.”

10. “Assuming China does not become destabilized and continues to grow, it will no doubt develop a military program in proportion to its resources.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “Men’s lot in life is endless hard work whose fruits will be consumed largely by others. The more men bring in, the greater the demands. Should men fail, they may lose both what they made and those to whom they gave it. Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Melville’s story is that, at times, Bartleby’s behavior and fate can tempt even the most active and successful man.”

11. “Men’s lot in life is endless hard work whose fruits will be consumed largely by others. The more men bring in, the greater the demands. Should men fail, they may lose both what they made and those to whom they gave it. Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Melville’s story is that, at times, Bartleby’s behavior and fate can tempt even the most active and successful man.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “Except when war is waged in a desert, noncombatants, also known as civilians or “the people,” constitute the great majority of those affected.”

12. “Except when war is waged in a desert, noncombatants, also known as civilians or “the people,” constitute the great majority of those affected.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “The way Lind sees it, the only Western commander who ever mastered third-generation warfare was George Patton. All others remained stuck in second-generation warfare, a blunt, clumsy instrument that had long outlived its usefulness and only worked because of the overwhelming advantage in firepower they enjoyed over Germany.”

13. “The way Lind sees it, the only Western commander who ever mastered third-generation warfare was George Patton. All others remained stuck in second-generation warfare, a blunt, clumsy instrument that had long outlived its usefulness and only worked because of the overwhelming advantage in firepower they enjoyed over Germany.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “It is simply not true that war is solely a means to an end, nor do people necessarily fight in order to obtain this objective or that. In fact, the opposite is true: people very often take up one objective or another precisely in order that they may fight.”

14. “It is simply not true that war is solely a means to an end, nor do people necessarily fight in order to obtain this objective or that. In fact, the opposite is true: people very often take up one objective or another precisely in order that they may fight.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “According to Clausewitz, the purpose of studying war was to provide commanders with a sound basis for their thinking and render it unnecessary to reinvent the wheel with every new situation.”

15. “According to Clausewitz, the purpose of studying war was to provide commanders with a sound basis for their thinking and render it unnecessary to reinvent the wheel with every new situation.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “In the future as in the past, both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu will undoubtedly have a lot to offer.”

16. “In the future as in the past, both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu will undoubtedly have a lot to offer.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “Sun Tzu does not need my praise. His work has lived for over two thousand years, and will surely live for another two thousand without any help from me.”

17. “Sun Tzu does not need my praise. His work has lived for over two thousand years, and will surely live for another two thousand without any help from me.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “The combination of professionalism and technology may also result in narrow-minded specialization more suited to a debating society than to an organization whose task it is to cope with, and indeed live in, the dangerous and uncertain environment of war.”

18. “The combination of professionalism and technology may also result in narrow-minded specialization more suited to a debating society than to an organization whose task it is to cope with, and indeed live in, the dangerous and uncertain environment of war.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “In The Prince he says that “a just war is a necessary war,” thus cutting through the Gordian knot formed by endless Medieval discussions of Just War from Saint Augustine to Saint Thomas Aquinas.”

19. “In The Prince he says that “a just war is a necessary war,” thus cutting through the Gordian knot formed by endless Medieval discussions of Just War from Saint Augustine to Saint Thomas Aquinas.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “There is equality before God and there is equality here on earth. There is natural equality and there is the kind of equality that human society creates.”

20. “There is equality before God and there is equality here on earth. There is natural equality and there is the kind of equality that human society creates.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “I want to put any number of assorted ‘ists’ – such as relativists, deconstructionists, destructivists, postmodernists, the more maudlin kind of pacifists and feminists – firmly in their place.”

21. “I want to put any number of assorted ‘ists’ – such as relativists, deconstructionists, destructivists, postmodernists, the more maudlin kind of pacifists and feminists – firmly in their place.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “However, by 1990, at the latest, the Clausewitzian framework was beginning to show serious cracks. As has just been said, it proved incapable of incorporating warfare by, or against, non-state actors.”

22. “However, by 1990, at the latest, the Clausewitzian framework was beginning to show serious cracks. As has just been said, it proved incapable of incorporating warfare by, or against, non-state actors.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “The first is extreme flexibility which will enable one to take advantage of fleeting opportunities. Said Sun Tzu, “an army is like water which adapts itself to the configuration of the ground.”

23. “The first is extreme flexibility which will enable one to take advantage of fleeting opportunities. Said Sun Tzu, “an army is like water which adapts itself to the configuration of the ground.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “Inequality, in other words, is precisely the principle upon which their social life is based and is made possible.”

24. “Inequality, in other words, is precisely the principle upon which their social life is based and is made possible.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “The enemy resembles us. Therefore, he needs to be approached not as an assembly of ‘targets’ to be destroyed one by one; but as a living, intelligent entity capable of acting and reacting.”

25. “The enemy resembles us. Therefore, he needs to be approached not as an assembly of ‘targets’ to be destroyed one by one; but as a living, intelligent entity capable of acting and reacting.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “Though hand-to-hand combat has become rare, much modern warfare continues to involve physical strain such as those who have not engaged in it can scarcely imagine.”

26. “Though hand-to-hand combat has become rare, much modern warfare continues to involve physical strain such as those who have not engaged in it can scarcely imagine.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “Herman Melville’s short story, “Bartleby the Scrivener.”

27. “Herman Melville’s short story, “Bartleby the Scrivener.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “However much some people may resent the fact, in nature inequality and not equality seems to be the rule.”

28. “However much some people may resent the fact, in nature inequality and not equality seems to be the rule.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “Accordingly, the Chinese texts regard war not as an instrument for the attainment of this end or that but as the product of stern necessity, something which must be confronted and coped with and managed and brought to an end. Clausewitz emphasizes that war is brutal and bloody and seeks to achieve a great victory. By contrast, the Chinese texts are permeated by a humanitarian approach and have as their aim the restoration of dao.”

29. “Accordingly, the Chinese texts regard war not as an instrument for the attainment of this end or that but as the product of stern necessity, something which must be confronted and coped with and managed and brought to an end. Clausewitz emphasizes that war is brutal and bloody and seeks to achieve a great victory. By contrast, the Chinese texts are permeated by a humanitarian approach and have as their aim the restoration of dao.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “A closer examination of the facts would have shown that hordes of perfectly free men and women enjoying equal authority, status and access to resources of every kind, including each other’s sexuality, have never existed and probably could not have existed. To paraphrase Hobbes, perfect equality, like its concomitant perfect liberty, can only exist when each individual lives alone in a desert, where it is meaningless.”

30. “A closer examination of the facts would have shown that hordes of perfectly free men and women enjoying equal authority, status and access to resources of every kind, including each other’s sexuality, have never existed and probably could not have existed. To paraphrase Hobbes, perfect equality, like its concomitant perfect liberty, can only exist when each individual lives alone in a desert, where it is meaningless.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “As a result, from 1945 on general works which tried to come to grips with the nature of war very often devoted a separate chapter to guerrilla warfare. They almost treated it as if it stood in no relation to anything else.”

31. “As a result, from 1945 on general works which tried to come to grips with the nature of war very often devoted a separate chapter to guerrilla warfare. They almost treated it as if it stood in no relation to anything else.”

— Martin van Creveld

Martin van Creveld Quote: “Thus knowing oneself is no less, and may be more, of a requirement than understanding the enemy.”

32. “Thus knowing oneself is no less, and may be more, of a requirement than understanding the enemy.”

— Martin van Creveld

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