On War / Clausewitz On Go

Following quotes are from the obsolete 19th century J. J. Graham translation of "On war", which, however, has the advantage of being available online. While Clausewitz has never written about Go, his thoughts can be as good an inspiration to the go player as those of other military writers.

• "The defensive form in war is therefore no mere shield but a shield formed of blows delivered with skill." - Conception of Defence

• "If the defensive is the stronger form of conducting war, but has a negative object, it follows of itself that we must only make use of it so long as our weakness compels us to do so, and that we must give up that form as soon as we feel strong enough to aim at the positive object." - Advantages of the Defensive

• "Territory is, therefore, the object of the attack; but that need not be a whole country, it may be confined to a part, a province, a strip of country, a fortress." - Of the objects of strategical attack

• "As soon as this object is attained, and the attack ceases, the defence commences." - Of the objects of strategical attack

• "Therefore, if an advantage is to be obtained by an aggressor in this way, it must first be ascertained that there is more to be got or to be threatened in the defender's provinces than in his own." - Diversion

• "there is, I say, only one result, to wit, the final result. Until it takes place nothing is decided, nothing won, nothing lost. Here we may say indeed: the end crowns the work. In this view, therefore, war is an indivisible whole, the parts of which (the subordinate results) have no value except in their relation to this whole." - Interrelation of the parts in war

• "A defence of the country, therefore, only waits for attack on the country; a defence of a theatre of war an attack on the theatre of war; and the defence of a position the attack of that position." - Methods of Resistance

"Die Feldzüge von 1799 in Italien und der Schweiz":

• "The disadvantage of being divided, with the enemy standing between us and preventing combination of forces, increases the closer the divided masses are to each other."