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Carl von Clausewitz

 (1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian general and influential military theorist. He is most famous for his military treatise Vom Kriege, translated into English as .

On War (1832)
by.

Unless otherwise specified, original German text from (TOC), English translation by wikisource:Author:James John Graham from On War.

2. Definition

 * Der Krieg ist also ein Akt der Gewalt, um den Gegner zur Erfüllung unseres Willens zu zwingen.
 * War therefore is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will.
 * Ch. 1, ¶2

3. Utmost use of force

 *  Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst.
 * Ch. 1, Section 3, ¶1

 * To introduce into the philosophy of War itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity.
 * Ch. 1, Section 3, ¶3
 * Variant translation: To introduce into the philosophy of war a principle of moderation would be an absurdity.
 * As quoted in The Campaign of 1914 in France and Belgium (1915) by George Herbert Perris, p. 56

 * War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.
 * Ch. 1, Section 3, ¶8
 * Variant translation: War is an act of violence which in its application knows no bonds.
 * As quoted in The Campaign of 1914 in France and Belgium (1915) by George Herbert Perris, p. 56

24. War is a mere continuation of policy by other means

 * Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln
 * War is merely the continuation of policy by other means. We see, therefore, that war is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse carried on with other means. What remains peculiar to war is simply the peculiar nature of its means.
 * Ch. 1, Section 24, in the Princeton University Press translation (1976)
 * Variant translations:
 * War is merely the continuation of politics by other means.
 * 'War is merely the continuation of politics with other means.'

Ch. 2
We see then that if one side cannot completely disarm the other, the desire for peace on either side will rise and fall with the probability of further successes and the amount of effort these would require. If such incentives were of equal strength on both sides, the two would resolve their political disputes by meeting half way. If the incentive grows on one side, it should diminish on the other. '''Peace will result so long as their sum total is sufficient — though the side that feels the lesser urge for peace will naturally get the better bargain.
 * Since war is not an act of senseless passion but is controlled by its political object, the value of this object must determine the sacrifices to be made for it in magnitude and also in duration. Once the expenditure of effort exceeds the value of the political object, the object must be renounced and peace must follow.
 * Ch. 2

Ch. 3

 * [...] so sind ihm zwei Eigenschaften unentbehrlich [...] Der erstere ist bildlich mit dem französischen Ausdruck coup d'oeil bezeichnet worden, der andere ist die Entschlossenheit.
 * [...] two qualities are indispensable [...] The first is figuratively expressed by the French phrase coup d'oeil. The other is resolution.
 * Ch. 3

 * Die Entschlossenheit ist ein Akt des Mutes in dem einzelnen Fall, und wenn sie zum Charakterzug wird, eine Gewohnheit der Seele. Aber hier ist nicht der Mut gegen körperliche Gefahr, sondern der gegen die Verantwortung, also gewissermaßen gegen Seelengefahr gemeint. Man hat diesen oft courage d'esprit genannt, weil er aus dem Verstande entspringt, aber er ist darum kein Akt des Verstandes, sondern des Gemüts. Bloßer Verstand ist noch kein Mut, denn wir sehen die gescheitesten Leute oft ohne Entschluß. Der Verstand muß also erst das Gefühl des Mutes erwecken, um von ihm gehalten und getragen zu werden, weil im Drange des Augenblicks Gefühle den Menschen stärker beherrschen als Gedanken.
 * Determination in a single instance is an expression of courage; if it becomes characteristic, a mental habit. But here we are referring not to physical courage but to courage to accept responsibility, courage in the face of a moral danger. This has often been called courage d'esprit, because it is created by the intellect. That, however, does not make it an act of the intellect: it is an act of temperament. Intelligence alone is not courage; we often see that the most intelligent people are irresolute. Since in the rush of events a man is governed by feelings rather than by thought, the intellect needs to arouse the quality of courage, which then supports and sustains it in action. Looked at in this way, the role of determination is to limit the agonies of doubt and the perils of hesitation when the motives for action are inadequate.
 * Ch. 3

 * Wir sagen es also noch einmal: ein starkes Gemüt ist nicht ein solches, welches bloß starker Regungen fähig ist, sondern dasjenige, welches bei den stärksten Regungen im Gleichgewicht bleibt, so daß trotz den Stürmen in der Brust der Einsicht und Überzeugung wie der Nadel des Kompasses auf dem sturmbewegten Schiff das feinste Spiel gestattet ist.
 * Strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them. Even with the violence of emotion, judgment and principle must still function like a ship’s compass, which records the slightest variations however rough the sea.
 * Ch. 3

Ch. 7

 * Action in war is like movement in a resistant element. Just as the simplest and most natural of movements, walking, cannot easily be performed in water, so in war it is difficult for normal efforts to achieve even moderate results.
 * Ch. 7, as translated by and  (1976)

(no chapter info)

 * 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.

 * The worst of all conditions in which a belligerent can find himself is to be utterly defenseless.

 * Men are always more inclined to pitch their estimate of the enemy's strength too high than too low, such is human nature.

 * ...only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent.

 * ... in the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.

 * Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.

 * With uncertainty in one scale, courage and self-confidence should be thrown into the other to correct the balance. The greater they are, the greater the margin that can be left for accidents.

 * Blind aggressiveness would destroy the attack itself, not the defense.

 * Our discussion has shown that while in war many different roads can lead to the goal, to the attainment of the political object, fighting is the only possible means.

 * Any complex activity, if it is to be carried on with any degree of virtuosity, calls for appropriate gifts of intellect and temperament. If they are outstanding and reveal themselves in exceptional achievements, their possessor is called a 'genius'.

 * If the mind is to emerge unscathed from this relentless struggle with the unforeseen, two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.

 * ... the role of determination is to limit the agonies of doubt and the perils of hesitation when the motives for action are inadequate.

 * Of all the passions that inspire a man in a battle, none, we have to admit, is so powerful and so constant as the longing for honor and renown.

 * Obstinacy is a fault of temperament. Stubbornness and intolerance of contradiction result from a special kind of egotism, which elevates above everything else the pleasure of its autonomous intellect, to which others must bow.

 * ...self-reliance is the best defense against the pressures of the moment.

 * Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.

Book 2

 * Architects and painters know precisely what they are about as long as they deal with material phenomena. … But when they come to the aesthetics of their work, when they aim at a particular effect on the mind or on the senses, the rules dissolve into nothing but vague ideas.

 * Modern wars are seldom fought without hatred between nations; this serves more or less as a substitute for hatred between individuals.

 * ...soldierly simplicity of character that has always represented the military at its best. In the higher ranks it is different. The higher a man is placed, the broader his point of view. Different interests and a wide variety of passions, good and bad, will arise on all sides. Envy and generosity, pride and humility, wrath and compassion - all may appear as effective forces in this great drama.

 * ...talent and genius operate outside the rules, and theory conflicts with practice.

 * The more physical the activity, the less the difficulties will be. The more the activity becomes intellectual and turns into motives which exercise a determining influence on the commander's will, the more the difficulties will increase.

 * Great things alone can make a great mind, and petty things will make a petty mind unless a man rejects them as completely alien.

 * Knowledge in war is very simple, being concerned with so few subjects, and only with their final results at that. But this does not make its application easy.

 * ...an intellectual instinct which extracts the essence from the phenomena of life, as a bee sucks honey from a flower. In addition to study and reflections, life itself serves as a source.

 * Knowledge must be so absorbed into the mind that it ceases to exist in a separate, objective way.

 * ...it is better to go on striking in the same direction than to move one's forces this way and that.

 * There are times when the utmost daring is the height of wisdom.

 * Thus it has come about that our theoretical and critical literature, instead of giving plain, straightforward arguments in which the author at least always knows what he is saying and the reader what he is reading, is crammed with jargon, ending at obscure crossroads where the author loses its readers. Sometimes these books are even worse: they are just hollow shells. The author himself no longer knows just what he is thinking and soothes himself with obscure ideas which would not satisfy him if expressed in plain speech.

 * Anyone who feels the urge to undertake such a task must dedicate himself for his labors as he would prepare for a pilgrimage to distant lands. He must spare no time or effort, fear no earthly power or rank, and rise above his own vanity or false modesty in order to tell, in accordance with the expression of the Code Napoléon, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

 * Essentally combat is an expression of hostile feelings. But in the large-scale combat that we call war hostile feelings often have become merely hostile intentions. At any rate, there are usually no hostile feelings between individuals. Yet such emotions can never be completely absent from war. Modern wars are seldom fought without hatred between nations; this serves as a more or less substitute for the hatred between individuals. Even when there is no natural hatred and no animosity to start with, the fighting itself will stir up hostile feelings: violence committed on superior orders will stir up the desire for revenge and retaliation against the perpetrator rather than against the powers that ordered the action. It is only human (or animal, if you like), but it is a fact.

Book 3

 * A prince or general can best demonstrate his genius by managing a campaign exactly to suit his objectives and his resources, doing neither too much nor too little.

 * What we should admire is the acute fulfillment of the unspoken assumptions, the smooth harmony of the whole activity, which only become evident in the final success.

 * Where execution is dominant, as it is in the individual events of a war whether great or small, then intellectual factors are reduced to a minimum.

 * If we do not learn to regard a war, and the separate campaigns of which it is composed, as a chain of linked engagements each leading to the next, but instead succumb to the idea that the capture of certain geographical points or the seizure of undefended provinces are of value in themselves, we are liable to regard them as windfall profits. In so doing, and in ignoring the fact that they are links in a continuous chain of events, we also ignore the possibility that their possession may later lead to definite disadvantages.

 * ...in war, the advantages and disadvantages of a single action could only be determined by the final balance.

 * The moral elements are among the most important in war. They constitute the spirit that permeates war as a whole, and at an early stage they establish a close affinity with the will that moves and leads a whole mass of force, practically merging with it, since the will is itself a moral quantity. Unfortunately they will not yield to academic wisdom. They cannot be classified or counted. They have to be seen or felt. … It is paltry philosophy if in the old-fashioned way one lays down rules and principles in total disregard of moral values. As soon as these appear one regards them as exceptions, which gives them a certain scientific status, and thus makes them into rules. Or again one may appeal to genius, which is above all rules; which amounts to admitting that rules are not only made for idiots, but are idiotic in themselves.
 * Ch 3 : Moral Factors, as translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret.

 * The commander's talents are given greatest scope in rough hilly country. Mountains allow him too little real command over his scattered units and he is unable to control them all; in open country, control is a simple matter and does not test his ability to the fullest.

 * Boldness will be at a disadvantage only in an encounter with deliberate caution, which may be considered bold in its own right, and is certainly just as powerful and effective; but such cases are rare.

 * Timidity is the root of prudence in the majority of men.

 * Boldness governed by superior intellect is the mark of a hero.

 * ...as man under pressure tends to give in to physical and intellectual weakness, only great strength of will can lead to the objective.

 * Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates; neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.

 * If a segment of one's force is located where it is not sufficiently busy with the enemy, or if the troops are on the march - that is, idle - while the enemy is fighting, then these forces are being managed uneconomically. In this sense they are being wasted, which is even worse than using them inappropriately.

 * ...any move made in a state of tension will be of more important, and will have more results, than it would have made in a state of equilibrium. In times of maximum tension this importance will rise to an infinite degree.

 * The state of crisis is the real war; the equilibrium is nothing but its reflex.

Book 5

 * All war presupposes human weakness and seeks to exploit it.

Book 6

 * What is the object of defense? To preserve. To preserve is easier than to acquire.
 * Ch. 1

 * Every suspension of offensive action, either from erroneous views, from fear or from indolence, is in favor of the side acting defensively.
 * Ch. 1

 * If defense is the stronger form of war, yet has a negative object, it follows that it should be used only so long as weakness compels, and be abandoned as soon as we are strong enough to pursue a positive object.
 * Ch. 1

 * But if the assailant, without troubling himself about the existence of the Army awaiting his attack in a defensive position, advances with his main body by another line in pursuit of his object, then he 'passes by the position,' and if he can do this with impunity, and really does it, he will immediately enforce the abandonment of the position, consequently put an end to its usefulness.
 * Ch. 1

 * Surprise becomes effective when we suddenly face the enemy at one point with far more troops than he expected. This type of numerical superiority is quite distinct from numerical superiority in general: it is the most powerful medium in the art of war.
 * Ch. 1

 * Phillipsburg was the name of one of those badly drawn fortresses resembling a fool with his nose too close to the wall.
 * Ch. 2

 * The Conqueror is always a lover of peace: he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.
 * Ch. 2

 * A conqueror is always a lover of peace (as Bonaparte always asserted of himself); he would like to make his entry into our state unopposed; in order to prevent this, we must choose war, and therefore also make preparations, that is in other words, it is just the weak, or that side which must defend itself, which should be always armed in order not to be taken by surprise; so it is willed by the art of war. (Original German: "Der Eroberer ist immer friedliebend (wie Bonaparte auch stets behauptet hat), er zöge ganz gern ruhig in unseren Staat ein; damit er dies aber nicht könne, darum müssen wir den Krieg wollen und also auch vorbereiten, d. h. mit anderen Worten: es sollen gerade die Schwachen, der Verteidigung Unterworfenen, immer gerüstet sein und nicht überfallen werden; so will es die Kriegskunst.")
 * Ch. 5

 * A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.
 * Ch. 11

 * ...only a fraction of book learning will seep into practical life anyhow; and the more foolish the theory, the less of it.
 * Ch. 17

Quotes about Clausewitz

 * On War constitutes the most important single work ever written on the subject. It has inspired general staffs, radical thinkers like Marx and Mao Tse-tung, and (with the start of the Cold War) jargon-ridden American academic studies of "strategy", huge in size but low in payload. Yet, oddly enough, Clausewitz figures little in university courses on political thought. Why Burke, Rousseau and J.S. Mill, but not Clausewitz? It is because his analysis is far too politically incorrect to be acceptable to the liberal mindset that has prevailed in Western academia since the mid-19th century. But such is Clausewitz's continuing power that small-l liberals even including, sad to say, John Keegan, author of this year's Reith Lectures – are at vast pains to dismiss his thinking as irrelevant, outmoded, dangerous or, absurdly, amoral.
 * Correlli Barnett, 'Home front, front line', The Spectator (4 July 1998)

 * What lessons, then, does the case of Clausewitz...offer to a military historian asked to ponder the future of war over the next 170 years? The first is that it would be pointless to imagine that future in terms of even the most advanced military technology of today. Everything that Clausewitz wrote, about the actual conduct of operations became irrelevant within 50 years, because firepower became transformed by breechloading, rifling and the machine-gun, while logistics and communications were transformed by the railway and the electric telegraph... Rather than thus seek to predict how wars will be operationally conducted and with what technology, it is more useful to return for guidance to Clausewitz's fundamental insights into the enduring nature of conflict and the relationship between war and politics. He famously wrote that "war is a continuation of policy by other means", meaning that it is not just a regrettable breakdown of a natural human harmony (as in the liberal view), but a tool of political purpose, and one which should be governed throughout its course by political, not purely military considerations. War, he further observes, is an act of violence intended to compel an opponent to fulfil our will.
 * Correlli Barnett, 'Home front, front line', The Spectator (4 July 1998)

 * One cannot help feeling that Liddell Hart was prejudiced against Clausewitz in the profoundest sense. He writes throughout as though the latter was advocating unlimited war to the exclusion of all alternatives, whereas even a superficial reading shows Clausewitz's intention to have been quite different; namely to suggest that total war was at one end of the spectrum of inter-state violence. Napoleon's campaigns had shown that modern nations in arms were capable of fighting such "total" wars and, once manifested, it was unlikely that similar wars would not occur in the future. But total war was "ideal" for Clausewitz only in the philosophical sense: his reiterated phrases to the effect that war must be subordinated to policy and is indeed only "a continuation of state policy with an admixture of other means" gives the lie to Liddell Hart's misrepresentation. In numerous places where Liddell Hart criticises him, Clausewitz is only coolly and accurately describing what tends to happen in war. The former gives the game away when he remarks: "Perhaps the harm might have been avoided if his book had been viewed in the light that its title implied—as a treatise on the nature of war, instead of as a practical guide to the conduct of war." Yet this is precisely the mistake that Liddell Hart himself repeatedly makes.
 * Brian Bond, Liddell Hart: A Study of His Military Thought (1977), pp. 80-81

 * His is not simply the greatest but the only truly great book on war.
 * Bernard Brodie, ‘The Continuing Relevance of On War’, in Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (1976; 1989), p. 53

 * 1870 woke us out of that sleep, for it gave us an enemy formed by the teaching of history—by the study of concrete facts. It was in such a fashion that Scharnhorst, Willisen and Clausewitz had, from the beginning of the nineteenth century, formed the Command of the Prussian Army. In order to know and understand war they had not confined themselves to examining the tool which is used in warfare, and taking it to pieces in its component material parts without taking man—who uses it—into account. In the Book of History, carefully analysed, they had found the living Army, troops in movement and action with their human needs, passions, weaknesses, self-denials, capacities of all sorts: "Far from being an exact science, war is a dreadful and impassioned drama."
 * Ferdinand Foch, The Principles of War (1918), pp. 4-5

 * It was during the period of calm that one of the most important works of military science was composed, Vom Kriege (‘On War’), by the director of the Prussian War Academy, Carl von Clausewitz. This little-read but much-criticised book contains the first attempt to create a philosophy of war and to analyse its characteristics from a detached standpoint. It played a great part in forming the attitude of mind of several generations of German General Staff Corps officers. From it derives that striving to observe both men and affairs coolly and sensibly which has been the foremost quality of all outstanding members of the German General Staff. It served also to strengthen the patriotism and the idealism which inspired such officers.
 * Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (1952), p. 454

 * Although Moltke did not follow Clausewitz's teachings on the proper relationship between war and politics, on many other points he was the key link between On War's philosophical speculations and the theory and practice of the Prussian army. Writing after the Second World War, General Staff officer Hermann Teske wrote that Moltke was the incarnation of the Clausewitzian theory. In the essays printed here, the reader will find ample conformation that Moltke employed Clausewitzian thinking and specific terms in numerous cases. Both Clausewitz and Moltke emphasised the primacy of battle and annihilation of the main enemy army. Both accepted uncertainty in warfare and emphasised improvisation over permanent or binding doctrine. Both emphasised the need for speed in making and executing decisions rather than lengthy searches for ideal solutions. Both emphasised moral factors in war and the need for independent action by local commanders, although Moltke certainly carried this farther than did Clausewitz. Both rejected the idea that systems could ever replace individual talent, and neither believed that any firm rules were possible in warfare.
 * Daniel J. Hughes, 'Introduction', Moltke On the Art of War: Selected Writings (1993), pp. 5-6

 * Herbert Rosinski concluded that Moltke was the man who applied Clausewitz's pure theory to the sphere of practical action. Waldemar Erfurth, an important German military writer and general in the Second World War, argued that Moltke freed the Prussian General Staff from Jomini's theories, led it into the intellectual world of Clausewitz, Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau, and developed Clausewitz's operational teachings in light of nineteenth-century developments.
 * Daniel J. Hughes, 'Introduction', Moltke On the Art of War: Selected Writings (1993), p. 6

 * We all know the dictum of Clausewitz, one of the most famous writers on the philosophy and history of war, which says: “War is a continuation of policy by other means.” This dictum comes from a writer who reviewed the history of wars and drew philosophic lessons from it shortly after the period of the Napoleonic wars. This writer, whose basic views are now undoubtedly familiar to every thinking person, nearly eighty years ago challenged the ignorant man-in-the-street conception of war as being a thing apart from the policies of the governments and classes concerned, as being a simple attack that disturbs the peace, and is then followed by restoration of the peace thus disturbed…
 * Vladimir Lenin, 'War and Revolution: A Lecture Delivered May 14 (27), 1917', Pravda No. 93 (23 April 1929)
 * Известно изречение одного из самых знаменитых писателей по философии войн и по истории войн — Клаузевица, которое гласит: «Война есть продолжение политики иными средствами». Это изречение принадлежит писателю, который обозревал историю войн и выводил философские уроки из этой истории — вскоре после эпохи наполеоновских войн. Этот писатель, основные мысли которого сделались в настоящее время безусловным приобретением всякого мыслящего человека, уже около 80 лет тому назад боролся против обывательского и невежественного предрассудка, будто бы войну можно выделить из политики соответственных правительств, соответственных классов, будто бы войну когда-нибудь можно рассматривать как простое нападение, нарушающее мир, и затем восстановление этого нарушенного мира.

 * If one weighs his influence and his emphasis, one might describe him historically as the Mahdi of mass and mutual massacre. For he was the source of the doctrine of "absolute war", the fight to a finish theory which, beginning with the argument that "war is only a continuation of state policy by other means", ended by making policy the slave of strategy.
 * B. H. Liddell Hart, The Ghost of Napoleon (1933), p. 120

 * Clausewitz's principle of force without limit and without calculation of cost fits, and is only fit for, a hate-maddened mob. It is the negation of statesmanship—and of intelligent strategy, which seeks to serve the ends of policy.
 * B. H. Liddell Hart, The Ghost of Napoleon (1933), p. 122

 * [T]he rascal has a ‘common sense’ bordering on wit.
 * Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels, quoted in Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (1989), p. 44

 * It is difficult not to feel that Clausewitz was right in teaching that "you must concentrate against the main enemy, who must be overthrown first", and that "the armed forces form the true objective", at least in any war where there is a genuine ideological issue.
 * George Orwell, review of B. H. Liddell Hart's The British Way in Warfare in New Statesman and Nation (21 November 1942), quoted in George Orwell, The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. Volume II: My Country Right or Left, 1940–1943, eds. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (1968), p. 248

 * By considering a few of Clausewitz's statements in isolation and christening him the "Mahdi of Mass," Basil Liddell Hart portrayed him as an intellectual forerunner of the commanders of the First World War, who for three-and-a-half years found no way out of the stalemate of the Western front, with its hundreds and thousands of casualties each week. For having stated that war was merely the continuation of policy by other means, Clausewitz was charged with minimising differences between peace and war, and thus making war more acceptable. But that accusation was based on a misunderstanding of the larger theoretical purpose of this definition: to identify political decisions as the common cause of war, which—if the leadership was rational—should also determine the degree of violence needed to achieve the political purpose. This misinterpretation fed into the view held by John Keegan, among others, that Clausewitz saw nothing morally reprehensible in war, and that his theories contributed to the boundless violence of the world wars and their ancillary conflicts in the twentieth century. To misread Clausewitz, and then ascribe to his ideas a greater influence than the world's actual experience with Napoleonic war, the vast expansion of armed forces throughout the nineteenth century, industrialisation, modern technology, and new ideologies, is, however, to fail to distinguish between historical events and their analyst.
 * Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His Theories, and His Times (1976; 1985), p. ix

 * [T]he characterisation of Clausewitz as a conservative fails to place him in the Prussian context, and, on the other hand, does not recognise that in the 1820s even a Briton with Clausewitz's views would have been a very odd Tory indeed. Clausewitz welcomed the destruction of corporative society in Prussia, to which he himself had contributed during the reform era; he believed in equality before the law, in a strong militia or Landwehr based on universal military service, in an independent judiciary, ministerial responsibility, a limited franchise, and a parliament with advisory functions. These views had much in common with early German liberalism, which still considered representative institutions less important than a professional and honest administration and a strong executive, able to defend Germany against east and west. Clausewitz's emphasis on a powerful central authority had conservative implications; yet it placed him in opposition to those conservatives who were more concerned with maintaining the traditional order of society than with increasing the power of the state, and neither Prussian conservatives nor the crown had any patience with the idea of a parliament, however limited its functions.
 * Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His Theories, and His Times (1976; 1985), p. xiv

 * Clausewitz's position on domestic issues was heavily influenced by his view of foreign affairs as they affected the security of the Prussian state. He was immune to the Byronic idealisation of liberation and freedom, valued stability, and trusted the balance of power to overcome or contain most international crises, as long as the strongest states had the ability and will to resort to war to defend the independence of the international community. That some smaller states might be sacrificed in the process, he accepted as inevitable. But at the same time he believed that Prussia would be stronger politically and militarily if its passive subjects turned into active citizens, serving in an army made up of regulars and a strong Landwehr, an institution that would give the middle class new openings to influence and power. On domestic affairs Clausewitz's views tended toward liberalism, on foreign affairs toward conservatism. In France and Britain before the Reform Act of 1832, these opinions might have placed him among moderates; in Prussia they sufficed to brand him Jacobin.
 * Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His Theories, and His Times (1976; 1985), p. xiv

 * If one compares Clausewitz and Foch, one will see that Foch before the World War strongly emphasized the demoralization of the enemy as the military objective; whereas Clausewitz, thinking more coolly and more comprehensively, reminded his readers that the capture or killing of the enemy constitutes in the tactical sphere the final destruction of his ability to fight on, whereas his moral overthrow constitutes only a conditioned, or generally only a temporary elimination.
 * Walther Reinhardt, quoted in Herbert Rosinski, The German Army (1939; rev. ed., 1944), pp. 185-186

 * Clausewitz was anything but a mere expert, a technician of the military craft. As shown by his poetic and expressive language alone, his way was a truly creative mind, richly endowed, open to all the sensations of nature, the full wealth of the human spirit. All in all he represented a most curious and rare combination of philosophical contemplation and impatience for action, of cold, lucid intellect and passionate sensitivity—a reflective spirit who ardently longed for heroic deeds with an ambition that was never to be fulfilled. He was, therefore, virtually predestined to cast the essence of the Prussian military spirit into a literary form none had found before him.
 * Gerhard Ritter, The Sword and the Sceptre: The Problem of Militarism in Germany, Volume I: The Prussian Tradition, 1740–1890 (1972), p. 52

 * His Protestation of 1812 is by far the purest and most powerful expression of the new spirit of militancy that inspired the patriots of 1812–1813. Among other things it contains a virtual catalogue of political virtues and vices, a brief summary of the new militant political ethic, so to speak. Clausewitz solemnly rejected everything that might buffer the iron necessity of a life-and-death struggle, or that might tempt man to evade it—such things as the "frivolous hope" for a favourable chance; languid inaction while blindly waiting what the future might bring; "unworthy servility and flattery" to appease tyrants; "false resignation" and "unreasoning distrust" of one's own capacity; "culpable neglect of duty" toward the general good; and above all cowardly submission and the "shameless surrender of the country's and people's honour, of the personal dignity of man." What he pledged instead was to shed the last drop of blood for life's freedom and dignity; to put king and country above all else; to regard their preservation as a "most sacred duty"; to "meet danger with manly courage, calm and firm resolve, and full awareness"; to be prepared to make the "supreme sacrifice" without fear or false cunning, free of all selfishness, inspired by the "glorious struggle for freedom and the dignity of the fatherland."
 * Gerhard Ritter, The Sword and the Sceptre: The Problem of Militarism in Germany, Volume I: The Prussian Tradition, 1740–1890 (1972), pp. 53-54

 * That the General Staff succeeded in preserving the lessons learned at such cost in the struggle against Napoleon, was to a large extent the work of Clausewitz. Among the whole group of the Reformers, Clausewitz had been from the outset the theoretician par excellence. Not in the sense of a one-sided abstract academic pedant, but as a practical soldier, who at the same time happened to be that rare phenomenon, a natural born theorist; combining a keen appreciation of the requirements of a sound theory, with a unique understanding of the practical uses to which it could be put. During the wars against Napoleon a series of mishaps kept Clausewitz in relatively subordinate positions incommensurate with his exceptional abilities. After the peace had been reestablished, he was confined for twelve dreary years, from 1818 to 1830 to a purely administrative post as military director of the War Academy in Berlin. There, out of the intense feeling of frustration that forced him to seek an outlet for his gifts and energies in his private studies arose a long series of military studies, culminating in his famous treatise On War, the most profound, comprehensive, and systematic examination of war that has appeared to the present day.
 * Herbert Rosinski, The German Army (1939; rev. ed., 1944), p. 73

 * [H]e far transcended the two great inspirations of his life: Scharnhorst and Napoleon. Out of Scharnhorst's fragmentary and aphoristic heritage he developed the systematic, closely knit, perfectly balanced theory, in which every factor, every aspect, every argument had its place from which it could not be removed without fatally endangering the delicate balance of the whole. From the deep appreciation of the revolution wrought by Napoleon in the art of war, he reached an infinitely broader conception embracing within its elastic framework and majestic sweep every conceivable form of warfare and strategy... [T]he impression it made when it was published after his death through the devoted efforts of his widow and friends was extraordinary. The circle of those who noticed it was at first not large, and the magnitude of his achievement, even in its fragmentary form, was far too great to be taken in at once. But his perfect mastery of his subject, the intuitive genius with which he had succeeded in expressing what his contemporaries consciously or subconsciously felt, the charm of his style deeply affected all those who read it. By a process of infiltration, the influence of his ideas spread through the higher ranks of the army, influencing the thoughts of men and replacing the far more superficial, if much more easily assimilable, doctrines of his Swiss contemporary and rival Jomini. That process, going on unobtrusively throughout the middle decades of the 19th Century, came to a full and open conclusion after the sudden death of Reyher when the leadership of the General Staff was entrusted to Moltke, who combined in an almost perfect balance the technical mastery of the conduct of operations developed in the General Staff with his profound insight into the deeper issues developed in Clausewitz's great treatise.
 * Herbert Rosinski, The German Army (1939; rev. ed., 1944), pp. 73-74

 * We must renounce attempts at building an absolute revolutionary strategy out of the elements of our limited experience of the three years of civil war, during which units of a particular quality fought under particular conditions. Clausewitz warned very well against this. "What could be more natural," he wrote, "than the fact that war of the French Revolution had its characteristic style, and what theory could have been expected to accommodate it? The danger is that this kind of style, developed out of a single case, can easily outlive the situation that gave rise to it: for conditions change imperceptibly. That danger is the very thing a theory should prevent by lucid, rational criticism. In 1806 the Prussian generals were under the sway of this methodism", and so on. Alas! Prussian generals are not the only ones with an inclination towards methodism, that is, towards stereotypes and conventional patterns.
 * Leon Trotsky, 'Military Doctrine or Pseudo-Military Doctrinairism' (1921), The Military Writings of Leon Trotsky, Volume 5: 1921–1923

 * [Clausewitz] quite understands that you must break the enemy's will, for which he suggests three processes: first to crush his army, and then to take his capital and, if that is not enough, to occupy his territory.
 * Spenser Wilkinson to B. H. Liddell Hart (14 June 1924), quoted in Brian Bond, Liddell Hart: A Study of His Military Thought (1977), p. 44

title: Carl von Clausewitz


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Talk:Carl von Clausewitz

Pasted this from the English 'pedia, no verification as to the accuracy of these translations as I speak no German, for that matter have not read any translations. Ellsworth

The name Karl von Clausewitz, should be changed to Carl von Clausewitz.. see the original wikipedia article and also spelling used by the world's leading authorities on the man, Peter Paret and Sir Michael Howard in many different articles, in particular, Paret's article in 'Makers of Modern Strategy' is extremely useful. Also clausewitz.com, does not make this mistake.

Attributed qoutes
The quote "War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale." is definitly not a Clausewitz-quote. It's Jomini. Clausewitz wrote "On War" to counter Jominis statement that war and duels were comparable. Clausewitz makes some statements where a battle can be seen as a duel, such as "the purpose of the defence is to parry the offencive" or something to the similar. But it's entirely on a tactic scale, which war can not be considered.

This is not true: Clausewitz calls war a duel in his definition of war, point 2 in his book "On War"

Unsourced
Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable, precise and verifiable source for any quote on this list please move it to Carl von Clausewitz. --Antiquary 17:41, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Four elements make up the climate of war: danger, exertion, uncertainty and chance.

 * In war the result is never final.

 * Politics is the womb in which war develops - where its outlines already exist in their hidden rudimentary form, like the characteristics of living creatures in their embryos.

 * Theory should be study, not doctrine.

Continuation of policy: "with other means" vs. "by other means"
It's argued convincingly that there is a significant semantic change in the official translation, could we correct it to more precisely correspond the original? Ain92 (talk) 12:25, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Carl von Clausewitz


title: User:N328KF


text: User talk:N328KF

title: User talk:N328KF


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User:John Kenney~enwikiquote

my en user page

title: User:John Kenney~enwikiquote


text:
Murray Rothbard

Murray Newton Rothbard (2 March 1926 – 7 January 1995) was an American economist of the Austrian School, an historian of both economic thought and American history, and a political philosopher whose writings and personal influence played a seminal role in the development of modern libertarianism. Rothbard was the founder and leading theoretician of anarcho-capitalism, a staunch advocate of natural law, and a central figure in the twentieth-century American libertarian movement. He was the author of over twenty books on anarchist theory, history, economics, and other subjects.

Quotes

 * In 1756 Edmund Burke published his first work: Vindication of Natural Society. Curiously enough it has been almost completely ignored in the current Burke revival. This work contrasts sharply with Burke’s other writings, for it is hardly in keeping with the current image of the Father of the New Conservatism. A less conservative work could hardly be imagined; in fact, Burke’s Vindication was perhaps the first modern expression of rationalistic and individualistic anarchism. … "Anarchism" is an extreme term, but no other can adequately describe Burke’s thesis. Again and again, he emphatically denounces any and all government, and not just specific forms of government. … All government, Burke adds, is founded on one "grand error." It was observed that men sometimes commit violence against one another, and that it is therefore necessary to guard against such violence. As a result, men appoint governors among them. But who is to defend the people against the governors? … The anarchism of Burke’s Vindication is negative, rather than positive. It consists of an attack on the State rather than a positive blueprint of the type of society which Burke would regard as ideal. Consequently, both the communist and the individualist wings of anarchism have drawn sustenance from this work.
 * "Edmund Burke, Anarchist", first published as "A Note on Burke’s Vindication of Natural Society" in the Journal of the History of Ideas, 19, 1 (January 1958), p. 114.

 * Barnes dismissed his own past criticism of the World War II unconditional surrender policy as valid but superficial; for he had learned from General Albert C. Wedemeyer’s book that the murder of Germans and Japanese was the overriding aim of World War II – virtually an Anglo-American scalping party.
 * 1968

 * If ‘we are the government,’ then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical; it is also ‘voluntary’ on the part of the individual concerned… if the government conscripts a man, or throws him into jail for dissident opinion, then he is ‘doing it to himself’ and therefore nothing untoward has occurred. Under this reasoning, any Jews murdered by the Nazi government were not murdered, instead, they must have ‘committed suicide,’ since they were the government (which was democratically chosen), and therefore anything the government did to them was voluntary on their part… the overwhelming bulk of the people hold this fallacy to a greater or less degree.
 * As quoted in “The Anatomy of the State”, Rampart Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2 (summer 1965), reprinted in the Libertarian Alternative, Tibor R. Machan, ed., Chicago: IL, Nelson-Hall (1977) p. 69-70

 * It is curious that people tend to regard government as a quasi-divine, selfless, Santa Claus organization. Government was constructed neither for ability nor for the exercise of loving care; government was built for the use of force and for necessarily demagogic appeals for votes. If individuals do not know their own interests in many cases, they are free to turn to private experts for guidance. It is absurd to say that they will be served better by a coercive, demagogic apparatus.
 * Power and Market: Government and the Economy, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2006, p. 256. First published in 1970

 * All interstate wars intensify aggression – maximize it … some wars are even more unjust than others. In other words, all government wars are unjust, although some governments have less unjust claims…
 * As quoted in an interview in Reason magazine (February 1973).

 * The natural tendency of the state is inflation.
 * The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar (1974).

 * I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual. Anarchists oppose the State because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.
 * "Society Without A State" in The Libertarian Forum (1975).

 * Briefly, the State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area; in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion.
 * Murray Rothbard, The Anatomy of the State, Auburn, Alabama, Mises Institute (2009) p.11, first published in 1974

 * The fundamental political question is why do people obey a government. The answer is that they tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. Freedom from servitude comes not from violent action, but from the refusal to serve. Tyrants fall when the people withdraw their support.
 * Introduction to Étienne de La Boétie's Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (1975), p. 39

 * It is the state that is robbing all classes, rich and poor, black and white alike; it is the state that is ripping us all off; it is the state that is the common enemy of mankind.
 * , “The Noblest Cause of All,” Address to the Libertarian Party Convention (1977), Lewrockwell.com

 * There is one good thing about Marx: he was not a Keynesian.
 * "Interview with Murray N. Rothbard : The Austrian Economics Newsletter" (1990).

 * Rights may be universal, but their enforcement must be local.
 * Two Just Wars: 1776 and 1861 (1994).

 * It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.
 * The Death Wish of the Anarcho-Communists (1970).

 * Money is different from all other commodities: other things being equal, more shoes, or more discoveries of oil or copper benefit society, since they help alleviate natural scarcity. But once a commodity is established as a money on the market, no more money at all is needed. Since the only use of money is for exchange and reckoning, more dollars or pounds or marks in circulation cannot confer a social benefit: they will simply dilute the exchange value of every existing dollar or pound or mark. So it is a great boon that gold or silver are scarce and are costly to increase in supply. But if government manages to establish paper tickets or bank credit as money, as equivalent to gold grams or ounces, then the government, as dominant money-supplier, becomes free to create money costlessly and at will. As a result, this 'inflation' of the money supply destroys the value of the dollar or pound, drives up prices, cripples economic calculation, and hobbles and seriously damages the workings of the market economy.
 * "Taking Money Back", in The Freeman (September - October 1995).

 * Behind the honeyed but patently absurd pleas for equality is a ruthless drive for placing themselves (the elites) at the top of a new hierarchy of power.
 * Egalitarianism and the Elites (1995).

 * This, by the way, is the welfare state in action: Its a whole bunch of special interest groups screwing consumers and taxpayers, and making them think they're really benefiting.
 * from an audio tape of Rothbard's 1986 lecture "Tariffs, Inflation, Anti-Trust and Cartels" [53:47 to 53:55 of 1:47:29], part of the Mises Institute audio lecture series "The American Economy and the End of Laissez-Faire: 1870 to World War II").

 * Harold, the young kids out there are not going to be willing to go to the barricades in defense of lowered transaction costs.
 * A Cost/Benefit Analysis of the Human Spirit : The Luddites Revisited (15 March 2003).

 * All my life, it seems, I have hated the guts of Max Lerner. Now, make no mistake: there is nothing personal in this rancor. I have never met, nor have I ever had any personal dealings with, Max. No, my absolute loathing for Max Lerner is disinterested, cosmic in its grandeur. It's just that ever since I was a toddler, this ugly homunculus, this pretentious jackass, has been there, towering over the American ideological scene. In the fifty-five years that I have been aware of Max's presence, in all of his many permutations and combinations and seeming twists and turns, he has taken the totally repellent position at every step of the way.
 * "I Hate Max Lerner" (2005).

 * In short, the early receivers of the new money in this market chain of events gain at the expense of those who receive the money toward the end of the chain, and still worse losers are the people (e.g., those on fixed incomes such as annuities, interest, or pensions) who never receive the new money at all.
 * The Case Against the Fed (5 June 2009).

 * So: if the chronic inflation undergone by Americans, and in almost every other country, is caused by the continuing creation of new money, and if in each country its governmental "Central Bank" (in the United States, the Federal Reserve) is the sole monopoly source and creator of all money, who then is responsible for the blight of inflation? Who except the very institution that is solely empowered to create money, that is, the Fed (and the Bank of England, and the Bank of Italy, and other central banks) itself?
 * The Case against the Fed.

 * The more consistently Austrian School an economist is, the better a writer he will be.
 * As quoted in "An intellectual Autobiography" by Bryan Kaplan, in I Chose Liberty : Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians (2010) edited by Walter Block, p. 75.

 * The clear and logical thinker will always be an 'extremist', and will therefore always be interesting: his pitafall is to go wildly into error. But on the other hand, while the orthodox 'middle-of-the-road' thinker will never get that far wrong, neither will he ever contribute anything either, aside from being generally deadly dull.
 * Review of William Zelermyer's book Invasion of Privacy, published by the Volker Fund (6th October 1960)

 * [O]ften, only extremists' make sense, while eclectics and moderates are entangled in contradictions.
 * Review of Milton Friedman's book, A program for Monetary Stability, published by the Volker Fund (31th October 1960)

For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973)

 * Full text online

 * If a man has the right to self-ownership, to the control of his life, then in the real world he must also have the right to sustain his life by grappling with and transforming resources; he must be able to own the ground and the resources on which he stands and which he must use. In short, to sustain his "human right."

 * The libertarian creed, finally, offers the fulfillment of the best of the American past along with the promise of a far better future. Even more than conservatives... libertarians are squarely in the great classical liberal tradition that built the United States and bestowed on us the American heritage of individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government, and a free-market economy.

What Has Government Done to Our Money? (1980)

 * Full text online

 * The cumulative development of a medium of exchange on the free market — is the only way money can become established. … government is powerless to create money for the economy; it can only be developed by the processes of the free market.

 * Money is a commodity … not a useless token only good for exchanging; … It differs from other commodities in being demanded mainly as a medium of exchange.

 * It doesn't matter what the supply of money is.

 * Inflation may be defined as any increase in the economy's supply of money not consisting of an increase in the stock of the money metal.

 * Money … is the nerve center of the economic system. If, therefore, the state is able to gain unquestioned control over the unit of all accounts, the state will then be in a position to dominate the entire economic system, and the whole society.

 * Inflation, being a fraudulent invasion of property, could not take place on the free market.

 * Freedom can run a monetary system as superbly as it runs the rest of the economy. Contrary to many writers, there is nothing special about money that requires extensive governmental dictation.

(1982)

 * The Ethics of Liberty (1982)

 * A parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die. The law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent to feed a child or to keep it alive. (Again, whether or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a completely separate question.) This rule allows us to solve such vexing questions as: should a parent have the right to allow a deformed baby to die (e.g., by not feeding it)? The answer is of course yes, following a fortiori from the larger right to allow any baby, whether deformed or not, to die. (Though, as we shall see below, in a libertarian society the existence of a free baby market will bring such "neglect" down to a minimum.)
 * Children and rights, p. 100

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (1995)

 * The problem is that he originated nothing that was true, and that whatever he originated was wrong.
 * On Adam Smith.

 * John Stuart was the quintessence of soft rather than hardcore, a woolly minded man of mush in striking contrast to his steel-edged father.

 * Shameless sponging on friends and relatives … Marx affected a hatred and contempt for the very material resource he was too anxious to cadge and use so recklessly. Marx created an entire philosophy around his own corrupt attitudes toward money.

The Betrayal of the American Right (2007)

 * Auburn, Alabama. Ludwig von Mises Institute

 * One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, "our side," had captured a crucial word from the enemy. Other words, such as "liberal," had been originally identified with laissez-faire libertarians, but had been captured by left-wing statists, forcing us in the 1940s to call ourselves father feebly "true" or "classical" liberals. "Libertarians"’, in contrast, had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over, and more properly from the view of etymology; since we were proponents of individual liberty and therefore of the individual's right to his property., p. 83

Quotes about Rothbard

 * According to Rothbard, a child becomes an adult not when he reaches some arbitrary age limit, but rather when he does something to establish his ownership and control over his own person: namely, when he leaves home, and becomes able to support himself. This criteria, and only this criteria, is free of all the objections to arbitrary age limits. Moreover, not only is it consistent with the libertarian homesteading theory, it is but an application of it. For by leaving home and becoming his own means of support, the ex-child becomes an initiator, as the homesteader, and owes his improved state to his own actions.
 * Walter Block (1976, 1991, 2008), Defending the Undefendable, Auburn, Alabama: Mises Institute, p. 245

 * Let me take the liberty of being uncharitable but truthful. Rothbard had a problem. He thought he was a great economist, but practically nobody within the profession agreed and most of them had never heard of him. Rothbard had a solution. He was ignored because he held extreme pro-market views, which were ideologically unpopular in the academy. Rothbard had a problem. Milton Friedman held extreme pro-market views--not as extreme as Rothbard's, but far enough from academic orthodoxy so that the same effect should have existed. But Milton Friedman not only wasn't ignored, he was viewed within the profession as a leading figure--despite his unpopular political views. Rothbard had a solution--to persuade himself and his followers that Milton Friedman was really one of them instead of one of us, hence his acceptance by the profession didn't contradict Rothbard's view of the reason for Rothbard's non-acceptance. Maintaining that claim was difficult--at one point I remember being told by a Rothbard supporter, explaining why he was not going to publish a letter of mine in his journal that contained quotes from my father inconsistent with Rothbard's account of my father's views, that if Rothbard and Friedman disagreed about what Friedman's views were, Rothbard was right.
 * David Friedman, Comment on "Austrian Fantasy" (July 26, 2011)

 * It may come as a surprise to learn that for Rothbard the New Left's most "crucial contribution to both ends and means…is its concept of 'participatory democracy.'" … This may seem less surprising once one realizes that for Rothbard the free market is the fullest realization of participatory democracy. …  The political appeal of participatory democracy for Rothbard was its requirement of decentralization, and its rejection of a layer of political "representatives" above the people.  But Rothbard also found the idea appealing outside the narrowly political sphere. He wrote: "Participatory democracy is at the same time…a theory of politics and a theory of organization, an approach to political affairs and to the way New Left organizations (or any organizations, for that matter) should function."  And he praised "fascinating experiments in which workers are transformed into independent and equal entrepreneurs."  Traditional "socialist" goals such as workers' control of industry, then, were apparently not anathema to Rothbard. Indeed, he would later argue that any nominally private institution that gets more than 50% of its revenue from the government, or is heavily complicit in government crimes, or both, should be considered a government entity; since government ownership is illegitimate, the proper owners of such institutions are "the 'homesteaders', those who have already been using and therefore 'mixing their labor' with the facilities." This entails inter alia "student and/or faculty ownership of the universities." As for the "myriad of corporations which are integral parts of the military-industrial complex," one solution, Rothbard says, is to "turn over ownership to the homesteading workers in the particular plants." He also supported third-world land reforms considered socialistic by many conservatives, on the grounds that existing land tenure represented "continuing aggression by titleholders of land against peasants engaged in transforming the soil."
 * Roderick T. Long, "Rothbard's 'Left and Right': Forty Years Later," Rothbard Memorial Lecture, Austrian Scholars Conference (2006).

 * For Rothbard, it was precisely capitalism that was the one and only savior of mankind. Whereas Buchanan was a strict constitutionalist and a strong patriot, Rothbard was opposed to government itself—and not just the American government, but all government. According to Rothbard’s anarcho-capitalism, all state functions could be served cheaper, better, and more effectively by the free market. This included the police and even national defense.
 * Michael Malice, The New Right: A Journey into the Fringe of American Politics (2019)
 * For Rothbard, “no government interference with exchanges can ever increase social utility,” and “[w]e are led inexorably, then, to the conclusion that the processes of the free market always lead to a gain in social utility.” Therefore, “capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism. Not only are they compatible, but you can’t really have one without the other.” For Rothbardians—as opposed to their archenemies the neocons—the worst of all government activity is war: “It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society.” There is no difference between a Lois Lerner and a beat cop. They are both enforcers of the state, albeit in different clothing.
 * Michael Malice, The New Right: A Journey into the Fringe of American Politics (2019)
 * For the evangelical left, equality and fairness are universally shared goals. Rothbard’s response was a book titled Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature. The idea that freedom and democracy are not only compatible but downright synonymous is taken for granted in contemporary American culture, but here Rothbard disagrees as well. The popular conception of democracy is one in which every voter envisions their ideal society and then votes us in that direction. In the anarchist perspective, this is akin to everyone imagining themselves as a totalitarian dictator and then selecting the politician who will best implement their plan into reality. Rothbard thought of the vote in a different way. By regarding all state action as illegitimate, he viewed the two political parties as literal rival gangs whose power needed to be curtailed as much as possible and hopefully destroyed altogether. He regarded the air of prestige around Congress as akin to a Mafia don’s three-piece suit, a pretense of civility masking the murderous thug within. Accordingly, the New Right still regards vulgarity toward and disrespect for the elites as important mechanisms for revealing their true inner evil. Let them drop their masks and expose themselves as the moral abominations that they really are.
 * Michael Malice, The New Right: A Journey into the Fringe of American Politics (2019)
 * Finding no room for intellectual discussion in Rand’s sphere (and years later satirizing her in his embarrassingly juvenile and unpublished play Mozart Was a Red), Rothbard searched for other alliances. So while Buchanan was joining with Nixon, Rothbard was singing the praises of Tricky Dick’s archenemies: the New Left. Sometimes it was hard to tell if the anarchist Rothbard was simply looking for people to take him seriously, and at other times it was hard to tell how they could. For Rothbard, the way to freedom was to destroy the only thing that ever stood in its way: government. He praised the Black Power movement at first, seeing it as a useful opponent to the state (though spending little time writing about race per se, being an ultra-individualist). In 1967 Rothbard wrote that Che Guevara was “an heroic figure for our time” and “the living embodiment of the principle of Revolution.” In other words, my enemy’s enemy is my friend—a principle that the New Right struggles with to this day.
 * Michael Malice, The New Right: A Journey into the Fringe of American Politics (2019)
 * Noam Chomsky describes Murray Rothbard's vision of a libertarian society as "so full of hate that no human being would want to live in it."  (I will not attempt to dissect this insane remark here except to note how the "anti-authoritarian" Chomsky purports to speak for all human beings.)
 * James Ostrowski (06 Jan 2003), Chomsky's Economics, Mises Daily

 * Murray Rothbard said, more than once, that there was nothing wrong about a person not fully understanding economics; but that those ignorant of economic principles ought not to be proposing governmental policies to govern economic activity.
 * Butler Shaefer (2012). The Wizards of Ozymandias; Reflections on the Decline and Fall, Auburn, Alabama: Mises Institute, p. 107

 * It is my contention that Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism is misnamed because it is actually a variety of socialism, in that it offers an alternative understanding of existing capitalism (or any other variety of statism) as systematic theft from the lower classes and envisions a more just society without that oppression. Rather than depending upon the the labor theory of value to understand this systematic theft, Rothbardian market anarchism utilizes natural law theory and Lockean principles of property and self-ownership taken to their logical extreme as an alternative framework for understanding and combating oppression. ... Murray Rothbard was a visionary socialist ... Because the market anarchist society would be one in which the matter of systematic theft has been addressed and rectified, market anarchism ... is best understood a new variety of socialism—a stigmergic socialism. Stigmergy is a fancy word for systems in which a natural order emerges from the individual choices made by the autonomous components of a collective within the sphere of their own self-sovereignty. To the extent coercion skews markets by distorting the decisions of those autonomous components (individual people), it ought to be seen that a truly free market (a completely stigmergic economic system) necessarily implies anarchy, and that any authentic collectivism is necessarily delineated in its bounds by the the natural rights of the individuals composing the collective.
 * Brad Spangler, "Market anarchism as stigmergic socialism," BradSpangler.com (15 September 2006).

title: Murray Rothbard


text:
Looney Tunes: Back in Action

Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) is a feature-length Looney Tunes adventure combining live action and animation about a hapless stuntman, aided (and confounded) by his animated Hollywood friends Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and a studio executive, who stumble across a plot to possess a mysterious blue diamond in the course of rescuing his famous actor father.
 * Directed by Joe Dante. Written by Larry Doyle.

Real life has never been so animated.taglines

Dialogue

 * [first lines]
 * [in the opening cartoon sequence, we see a series of "Rabbit Season" signs all over the forest, as Elmer Fudd sneaks towards Bugs Bunny's rabbit hole]
 * Elmer Fudd: [to the audience] Shhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm hunting wabbits. Baa!
 * [the camera zooms over to Daffy Duck putting a "Rabbit Season" sign on a tree, as Bugs Bunny helps him out]
 * Daffy Duck: I am a duck bent on self-preservationum.

 * Daffy Duck: Hold everything. [looking over the script] "Daffy gets blasted." Mm-hmm. Page 7: "Daffy gets blasted." Uh-huh. Page 8: "Daffy gets blasted again!" What's the matter with you people? We can't do this kind of stuff anymore. Brothers Warner, show biz legends like me shouldn't have to play stooge… to that long-eared, carrot-chomping, overbite-challenged--
 * Bugs Bunny: What's up, doc?

 * Daffy Duck: [to Kate] Some grip, lady.
 * Kate Houghton: [to D.J.] I need you to eject this duck immediately.
 * D.J. Drake: Lady, this is Daffy Duck.
 * Kate Houghton: Exactly. Not anymore. We already owned the name.
 * Daffy Duck: [to Kate] Oh, yeah?! Well, you can't stop me from calling myself D... [gasps] D... [gasps again] Well, what do you know?
 * D.J. Drake: [to Kate] You fired Daffy Duck?
 * Kate Houghton: No, I didn't. I did... I mean... They did.

 * D.J. Drake: [indicating Daffy in hand] Miss Houghton!
 * [as a result of the Batmobile crashing into the Warner Bros. studio water tower, it starts to overturn in front of D.J., Kate, Bugs, and Daffy]
 * Camera crew: Get out of the way! Watch out!
 * [the water tower overturns, dousing Kate and Bugs and their car in water]
 * Bugs Bunny: Well, what do you know? I've found Nemo.
 * Daffy: [to DJ, about Kate] I think she likes you.
 * Kate Houghton: [turns around, and looks at D.J. and Daffy with an angry look on her face]
 * D.J. Drake: Oops!
 * [cut to a close-up view of D.J.'s right arm, as a security guard's hand rips the Warner Bros. Studios badge off of D.J.'s right sleeve, then cut to the security guard and the security guard employees looking at D.J.]
 * Security Guard: [to D.J.] Your father would be so ashamed of you!
 * D.J. Drake: But I was... it was...
 * [the main gate shuts tight behind D.J. as he walks away]

 * [Porky Pig and Speedy Gonzales chat and have lunch in the cafeteria]
 * Porky Pig: [to Speedy] Eh, at f-first they tell me to lose the stutter. And now, they tell me I'm not funny anymore! [sighs] It's a pain in the butt, being p-p-p-politically correct.
 * Speedy Gonzales: You're telling me.
 * [pan over to Shaggy and Scooby-Doo sitting across a table from Matthew Lillard, who portrayed Shaggy in the live-action adaptation; Shaggy is chastizing Lillard for his performance]
 * Shaggy: What kind of performance do you call that?! You made me sound like a total space cadet, man!
 * Matthew Lillard: I'm sorry you feel that way. I was just trying to be real to your character.
 * Shaggy: If you, like, goof on me in the sequel, I'm coming after you!
 * Scooby-Doo: Yeah! And I'll give you a Scooby Sna-AAAAAARRRRLLL!
 * [both Shaggy and Lillard become surprised by Scooby's snarl; pan over to Kate and Bugs discussing an upcoming Bugs Bunny film]
 * Kate Houghton: [to Bugs] There are a few areas of the script I think we need to address. There's no heart, no cooperation, nobody learns anything...
 * Bugs Bunny: [as Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf both enter the cafeteria, and then sit down at a nearby table] Daffy learns not to stick his head in a jet engine.
 * Kate Houghton: He's gone.
 * Bugs Bunny: No, Daffy always comes back. I just tell him how much I need him. We hug, we cry, I drop somethin' heavy on him, I laugh.
 * Kate Houghton: The duck is history, okay?! [calms down, as Ralph attempts to eat a sheep with a fork, but Sam stops him] So, the question is, how can we help you reposition your brand identity? Answer, we'll team you up with a hot female co-star.
 * Bugs Bunny: Usually, [spins around and dresses up in a woman's dress, wig, and makeup, and then speaks in a falsetto voice] I play the female love interest.
 * [at a nearby table, Michigan J. Frog sees Bugs in drag, and then attracts her with his singing and dancing]
 * Michigan J. Frog: [to Bugs, singing] Hello, my baby. Hello, my honey. Hello, my ragtime gal.
 * Kate Houghton: [to Bugs, as Michigan continues singing] Okay, about the cross-dressing thing. In the past, funny. Today, disturbing.
 * [Michigan stops singing and dancing, as the construction worker that tries to capitalize on him arrives with his box; Michigan hops into his box, and the construction worker then closes it]
 * Bugs Bunny: [as he takes off the dress, and the wig whilst the construction worker walks off with Michigan's box] Listen, lady, if you don't find a rabbit wearing lipstick amusing, you and I have nothin' to say to each other.
 * Kate Houghton: [gets serious] Look, I'm trying to be nice, but I was brought in to leverage your synergy! And I'm not going to let you, or some wacky duck...
 * Bugs Bunny: [wipes the makeup off his face] Daffy.
 * Kate Houghton: Wacky, daffy, nutty, fruit cake, crispy over rice, it doesn't matter!
 * Bugs Bunny: Well, these matter. [gets out his eight Award statuettes from underneath the table, and then puts them on the top of the table] And this. [gets out his Hollywood Walk of Fame tile with his name on it from underneath the table, and then puts it on the top of the table next to the Award statuettes] And they say we get Daffy back. [to his Award statuettes] Right, boys?
 * Bugs's Award statuettes: [in unison] We want Daffy! We want Daffy! Bring him Back! We love Daffy!
 * [a very disappointed Kate receives a smile from Bugs]

 * D.J. Drake: [to Granny] Hey, Granny. [to Tweety] Hi, Tweety.
 * Tweety: How was work today?
 * D.J. Drake: Eventful.
 * Granny: [about D.J.] What a nice young man.
 * Sylvester: [yowling in pain] MEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!

 * D.J. Drake: Hello?
 * Damian Drake: Son?
 * D.J. Drake: Dad? What are you doing in the painting?
 * Damian Drake: I wanted you to keep out of this, but there's nobody I can trust.

 * Bugs Bunny: [coughing and groaning while all bandaged up from Elmer's gunshot] Oh! Oh pain! Oh agony!
 * [Kate sighs with an embarrassed smile as the Warner Bros. look at her calming but in disgust]
 * Mr. Warner's Brother: You're fired.
 * [Kate in disbelief and horror while trying to explain]
 * Mr. Warner: You got rid of our best duck.
 * Kate Houghton: What?! You can't fire me! My films have made 950 million dollars!
 * Mr. Warner: That's not a billion.
 * Mr. Warner's Brother: Nope. Not a billion.
 * Kate Houghton: Okay, I think we can all agree that the decision of firing the duck was a bad one. But it's time to move on. And by move on, I mean reverse course and get Daffy back.
 * Warner Brothers: By Monday.
 * Kate Houghton: I'll have Daffy back on Monday.

 * Bugs Bunny: [while playing dead]: Doesn’t anyone knock anymore?
 * Kate Houghton: [aggravated]: Why are you torturing me? What have I ever done that… [before she can say anything, she sees posters of Damien Drake and a picture of both him and his son, D.J., in front of the Warner Bros. Studio and she quickly gets her answer] Great. I just fired the son of our biggest star. This has been a career making day, Kate. First you get rid of the Duck that everybody hates, but then, of course, they all want him back. [Bugs appears in a knight’s armor with a sly, arrogant and narrow look and smiles upon her confession of her wrongdoings and saying that he was right from the start about the bad decision she made and should’ve kept Daffy before she begins to tears up] And worst of all, you get into a big fight with Bugs Bunny… [these words soon cause Bugs to lose his mischievousness and turns surprise and wonders with thought] who you revere, and who you've tried to model your life after.
 * [her words were finally enough to make Bugs' eyes turn all puppy like and begins to tear up as he rises out of the armor as one of his tears roll down one of his whiskers]
 * Bugs: [finally unable to bear it any longer] Oh, I hate to see a grown man cry! [acts sarcastic to audience] Especially when it's a girl.

 * Bugs Bunny: You’ve got no music in your soul, sister.
 * Kate Houghton: I am aware of that, yes.
 * Bugs Bunny: He sure went for all the extras. What a maroon.
 * Kate Houghton: Don't touch anything. This is Damien Drake's car…
 * [before she could finish, Bugs presses a button with a bomb, causing a missile to launch out of the rear and blows up around a valley area]

 * [D.J. and Daffy Duck drive to Las Vegas]
 * Daffy Duck: Here's our plan. We'll go find the Blue Monkey Diamond, and your father, get our jobs back, and make history. That's our plan in a nutshell. If you do anything stupid, like cracking wise, and smooching dames, you better leave that to me. But if we want any security guarding needs...
 * D.J. Drake: Very funny, duck! I'm not a security guard! For your information, it's just a job. It's what I do for money.
 * Daffy Duck: Mm-hmm.
 * D.J. Drake: What I really do is...I'm...I'm a... I'm a stuntman.
 * Daffy Duck: Hah! You, a stuntman? Please!
 * D.J. Drake: I am! Did you see those Mummy movies? I'm in them more than Brendan Fraser is. [Daffy rolls his eyes, complete with cartoon sound effect] Oh, no, you couldn't stand that! One day, he decides to say, "No-no-no! The Bren-Master does all his own stunts"!
 * Daffy Duck: Let me do all the stunts.

 * [we see the first view of the ACME boardroom and its members]
 * ACME Chairman: This is unacceptable! We cannot have nine-year-olds working in sweatshops making ACME sneakers, not when three-year-olds work for so much less! [the VPs jump for their buzzers; VP Child Labor hits his first; The Chairman points to him] Yes?
 * VP Child Labor: But, sir, they require naps.
 * ACME Chairman: Put double espresso in their sippy cups!
 * ACME Chairman: We can't let the good guys win this time, people!

 * [at the Wooden Nickel, diva Dusty Tails changes while she talks about her career]
 * Dusty Tails: I also work for the Agency. Professional assassin. It's really hard for me to juggle the two sometimes. I don't know what I'm gonna do when I have kids! [comes out wearing a shiny black leather catsuit] Do you know how hard it is to find a nanny with advanced weapons training?
 * Daffy Duck: [gives a wolf-whistle then his usual whoo hoo] How many galoshes died to make that little number?

 * [D.J. tries to take the Mona Lisa Queen of Diamonds playing card from Dusty, who instead slips it inside her outfit]
 * Dusty Tails: That is so sweet! You, trying to take over for your father. These evil forces, they're bad people!
 * Daffy Duck: Relax, sister! I don't know the meaning of the word "fear"! [opens the door and finds himself facing a lit cannon with Yosemite Sam and his henchmen]
 * Yosemite Sam: Say your prayers, Duck!
 * Daffy Duck: "Fear: Noun. A state of terror". AAH!

 * [Yosemite Sam chases D.J. and Daffy through the Wooden Nickel casino, guns a-blazin']
 * Yosemite Sam: Come back here, ya card-carryin' cuy-ote! [and slips on a banana peel] Yikes! Ooooh! Dad-burned slapstick cliché!

 * Foghorn Leghorn: [to D.J.] Card, sir?
 * D.J. Drake: Hit me.
 * Foghorn Leghorn: Don't-I say, don't 'cha wanna look at your cards first, son? Boy's 'bout as sharp as a bowlin' ball.
 * Yosemite Sam: Hit me.
 * Foghorn Leghorn: We have-I say, we have a winner!

 * [Daffy and D.J. finally escape the Wooden Nickel]
 * Daffy Duck: I say we do Cirque de Soleil and call it a night. [D.J. makes a mad dash for his car] How 'bout the Liberace Museum? All right. Let's see what this baby can really do. [suddenly the car sputters and turns to pieces from all the long driving] Now that's an interesting feature.

 * Yosemite Sam: [to Jeff Gordon, who is dressed up in his racecar driver uniform] Outta my way, fancy boy! I'm-a commandeerin' this here clown car!

 * [Kate and Bugs drive through the streets of Las Vegas, looking for Daffy]
 * Kate Houghton: There's gotta be 314 hotels and 142 casinos in Las Vegas! We are never gonna find that duck.
 * [suddenly, Daffy runs into the street and is promptly plastered onto the windshield; Kate gasps and Bugs laughs]
 * Bugs Bunny: Hee-hee. Daff never misses a cue. [D.J. arrives, peels off Daffy, and tosses him into the back seat, upside down, next to Bugs] Eh, what's up, Duck?
 * Daffy Duck: Don't you start with me.
 * [D.J. notices Kate in the driver's seat of the car]
 * D.J. Drake: You!
 * Kate Houghton: You!
 * Daffy Duck: [to Bugs] You!
 * Bugs Bunny: Him?
 * Daffy Duck: Her!
 * Bugs and Daffy: [in unison] Them!
 * Yosemite Sam: [driving fast]: Out of my way! [He crashes through a clothing stand, and then he and his henchmen are seen wearing clothes from the stand crash] Dagnabbit!

 * [driving alongside the good guys, Nasty Canasta lights a stick of dynamite to throw into their car]
 * Kate Houghton: Dynamite?! Who has dynamite?!
 * Daffy Duck: [scoffs] Welcome to my world.

 * [the good guys take off, leaving the bad guys with the lit dynamite]
 * Yosemite Sam: Throw it out the window! Throw it out! Throw it out!
 * Nasty Canasta: But innocent people could get hurt.
 * Yosemite Sam: Throw it out the window! Throw it out! Throw it out!
 * Cottontail Smith: But it'll send the wrong message to children!
 * Yosemite Sam: I said, "Throw it out the... Oooh! Gimme the- [dynamite explodes in front of them] Ooh!

 * [D.J., Kate, Bugs, and Daffy approach a dead end]
 * Bugs Bunny: Eh, just a suggestion, but all those in favor of not hittin' that wall, say "aye".
 * D.J. and Kate: [in unison] AYE!
 * Daffy Duck: Mother!
 * Spy car computer: Taking you to Mother!
 * [the car takes to the sky before it can hit the wall]

 * [just before the heroes' flying car crashes, it stops a few feet above the desert ground]
 * Bugs Bunny: Ha. Outta gas.
 * [fade to black]
 * Kate Houghton: What?! It doesn't work like that!
 * [cut back to car, which smashes into the ground]
 * Bugs Bunny: Thanks, Toots.

 * [in the desert, D.J. spots a Wal-Mart store, rippling in the heat]
 * D.J. Drake: Hey, look at that!
 * Bugs Bunny: Is it a mirage, or just product placement?
 * Daffy Duck: Who cares? With shopping convenience at such low prices! [runs toward the image] Water! Fresca! Mountain Dew! Your product name here! Woo-hoo-hoo!
 * D.J. Drake: [to Kate] Is this your idea?
 * Kate Houghton: [opens her mouth to object, then gets defensive] The audience expects it. They don't even notice this kind of thing anymore.
 * [D.J. shares his disappointed look with the audience; later, the intrepid adventurers depart the desert Wal-Mart with beverages and new clothes]
 * Bugs Bunny: Nice of Wal-Mart to provide these Wal-Mart beverages in retoin for us saying "Wal-Mart" so many times.

 * [Wile E. Coyote observes the heroes trudging through the desert]
 * Bugs Bunny: I told ya we shoulda made that left toin at Albuqwirky.
 * Daffy Duck: Don't start that again!

 * Daffy Duck: Except for the water tower, the Batmobile, and the pile of rubble formerly known as Las Vegas.
 * D.J. Drake: There's no one as rich or famous as my father who just disappears into thin air.
 * [he continues walking, and suddenly vanishes into the Area 52 force field door]

 * ACME Chairman: [to a miserable Wile E. Coyote] Oh, my God! Young man, what am I going to do with you?! You've done nothing but screw up! You've walked off mesas! You've been smashed by boulders! You've been run over by diesel trucks! And don't blame the equipment! The equipment is good; it's ACME equipment. You're a coyote! Be wile! [calms down] All right, now... buck up and let's see a little smile. [Wile E. smiles, briefly and unenthusiastically] Little bigger. [Wile E. gives a bigger one, this time holding it] Little bigger. [Wile E.'s smile spreads to a disproportionate size] Oh, that's nice. Now, just go take a shower, and don't come back until you smell better! [Wile E., now cheered up, heads upstairs] But be careful! There's some men moving a safe up there, and I don't want you to- [a cartoonish jet-engine, followed by a "crash" sound, is heard] And be careful of the box of fireworks, because- [released fireworks are heard] I suppose I should mention the plate-glass window- [shattering glass is heard] Oh, It's tough being the boss.

 * [inside the Area 52 lab, chief spy-scientist Mother talks to the good guys, including D.J., et al.]
 * Mother: This isn't about the giant ants, is it?
 * Kate Houghton: Giant... ants?
 * Mother: 'Cause they're not really ants... anymore. [drinks from a flask of blue liquid]
 * D.J. Drake: Tell me about the Blue Monkey Diamond.
 * Mother: [spews her beverage on D.J.] How do you know about that thing that I've never heard of in my entire life?
 * D.J. Drake: My dad told me.
 * Mother: [pauses] What is the point of making them pinky-swear?!

 * [Marvin the Martian releases aliens from various classic films and TV shows in Area 52]
 * Daffy Duck: Yikes! Illegal aliens!
 * Dalek: Exterminate them!
 * Mother: Darn! I knew this day would come...
 * [she goes to an alarm labelled "PUSH ONLY IN CASE THIS DAY COMES" and triggers it]

 * [at the Louvre, as Daffy grabs the playing-card lens, Elmer Fudd jams his shotgun into the back of Daffy's head]
 * Elmer Fudd: I'll take that!
 * Bugs Bunny: Eh, what gives, Doc? We made thoity-five pictures together.
 * Elmer Fudd: Well, as it tuwns out, I'm secwetwy evil.
 * Daffy Duck: [snorts] That's showbiz for ya.
 * Elmer Fudd: Now, make with the card, so I can pwease my dark masters!

 * [Bugs and Daffy enter the Persistence of Memory painting to evade Elmer Fudd; Elmer follows, enters the picture, and takes aim, until his gun melts, remaining true to the theme of the painting. Bugs and Daffy laugh at them, and run off, but, they, too, start melting; their voices are slow and toned to a low key]
 * Daffy Duck: Well, this is surreal.
 * Elmer Fudd: [producing icons that represent each word he says] Stop, or I'll fire! [attempts to take aim again]
 * Bugs and Daffy: [in unison] Yipe!
 * [Elmer fires, but the bullets are only propelled a few inches away by Elmer's side; Elmer starts to melt completely out of shape; Bugs and Daffy make their way to the next painting through the wallpaper]

 * D.J. Drake: There's a man there! He's got a woman! She's tied up in a burlap sack and he's taking her to the Eiffel Tower!
 * Pepe Le Pew: Ah, eet eez Spring, eez eet not?

 * [after Daffy and Bugs jump out of the painting, Elmer Fudd leaps out of La Grande Jatte (by pointillist Georges Seurat) at last, but he remains in painting form; Bugs reads from a museum guide]
 * Bugs Bunny: Pointillism. A technique using individual dots of pigment, which, taken together... [whips out a pocket electric fan] ...make an image. [turns on the fan]
 * Elmer and Ralph: [in unison] Aw, crud! [Elmer's dots start to disperse, until only his shoes are left]
 * Bugs Bunny: [to the audience] I think, when you go to the movies, you should learn somethin'.
 * [Daffy is busy redrawing himself]

 * [as Granny's elephant progresses through the jungle, a flock of multicolored Tweety birds fly around]
 * Tweety: I've discovered my woots!
 * Sylvester: I've discovered my lunch!
 * [the birds attack Sylvester]
 * Tweety: [in his African garb] Cry freedom!

 * [from behind, we see the elephant come upon a picturesque lost city in the jungle]
 * Daffy Duck: What a fantastic view!
 * Bugs Bunny: Unless you're in the audience, in which case you've been staring at an elephant's behind for thoity seconds.

 * ACME Chairman: Now, this, my friend, is the ACME Train of Death, which is not good news for your father.
 * Damian Drake: Don't worry about me, son. I've gotten out of worse scrapes than this one.
 * [Wile E. Coyote lights several sticks of dynamite around Damian]
 * ACME Chairman: You see, if the Train of Death doesn't kill him, then those crates of TNT will. Not to mention the 2-ton anvil hanging over his head. And- [sees a giant bladed pendulum swinging over Damian] Oh, look. There's the Pendulum of Doom. What's the Pendulum of Doom doing there?! I did not order the Pendulum of Doom! It's overkill! Get rid of it!
 * [Wile E. sheepishly pulls up the Pendulum of Doom]

 * [outside the ACME satellite, Marvin the Martian (who Bugs and Daffy previously almost got rid of) holds an ACME Bubble Gun on Bugs]
 * Marvin the Martian: You tricked me!
 * Bugs Bunny: Eh, what's up, Darth?
 * Marvin the Martian: Now I must incapacitate you with my bubble gun. [shoots once]
 * Bugs Bunny: Aww, ain't that cu- [touches bubble, which bursts, sending him flying back] Yikes! [he lands on the satellite] Of course, you realize this means war. [draws a plasma sword akin to a lightsaber from Star Wars to fight Marvin]

 * [while Bugs fights Marvin outside a spaceship, Daffy cowers inside, sucking his thumb]
 * Daffy Duck: What am I gonna do? What would Damian Drake do? What would Duck Dodgers do? [pause in realization] Wait a minute, I am Duck Dodgers! [spins and changes into his Duck Dodgers outfit] Yes! I'm going to be the hero of this picture! [straps on a rocket] Duck Dodgers to the rescue! [the rocket explodes; he straps on a second rocket; dazed] Duck Dodgers to the- [another explosion; he straps on a third; dazed] Duck Dodgers- [yet another explosion; angrily glares at a fourth rocket] Duck. [yet another explosion; straps on the last rocket and appears undamaged] A-ha! It's You-Know-Who to the rescue! [to the camera] It helps if ya don't say the name.

 * Marvin the Martin: Thwarting evil makes me so angry.
 * [Marvin aims at Bugs again until the bubbles holding him pops; he tries to shoot Bugs again, but the rabbit sticks his index finger inside his gum gun, clogging it, and seals the Martian in his own bubble, and then flicks it away, causing the Martin to float away]
 * Bugs Bunny: Well, that takes care of that. [quickly on cue after he said it, he is grabbed by the claw] Yipe!

 * ACME Chairman: [coming out] Are you all monkeys yet? [sees one of the laser beams that shot out of Daffy's nose coming right at him] Uh-oh! [the beam heads straight towards him, and then suddenly disappears in a flash of the beam]
 * [D.J., Kate, and Damian arrive to see a monkey with glasses, revealing to be the ACME Chairman in monkey form, next to Mary, who is sobbing]
 * Damian Drake: Checkmate, Mr. Chairman. [holding up tiny handcuffs the size of monkey hands] You're going down. [crouches down in front of monkey Chairman and starts putting the handcuffs on his wrists]

 * [last lines before the End Credits]
 * [Bugs walks to the car]
 * Bugs's Butler: Bugs is here. Gotta go.
 * Bugs Bunny: [to Daffy] Daffy, you're right.
 * Ryan: [to Bugs] The usual place, Mr. Bunny?
 * Bugs Bunny: Very good, Ryan.
 * Bugs Bunny: [to Daffy, as Gruesome Gorilla, Egghead, the Squirrel (from Much Ado About Nutting), and the other Looney Tunes characters and Merrie Melodies characters give him some carrots] From now on, you and I are going to be equal partners in this thing. No more second banana for you.
 * Daffy Duck: Well, thanks, pal. I really appreciate this. [the car drives away from him] At last, my star is rising. All my hopes and aspirations... [a giant light appears falling into the floor] Well, what do you know? My luck is changing already.
 * [a giant metal circle landed on Daffy; finally, Porky pops out]
 * Director: Goodnight, Porky. See you tomorrow.
 * Porky Pig: [to the audience] Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th... Go home, folks.
 * [the lights went out]

Taglines

 * Real life has never been so animated.
 * How do they solve a mystery when they don't have a clue?
 * The biggest animated adventure ever to hit real life.
 * That sounds really boring.

Live-Action Characters

 * Brendan Fraser — Damian Drake Jr. (D.J.), Himself
 * Jenna Elfman — Kate Houghton
 * Steve Martin — ACME Chairman
 * Timothy Dalton — Damian Drake Sr.
 * Joan Cusack — Mother
 * Bill Goldberg — Bob Smith
 * Heather Locklear — Dusty Tails
 * Don Stanton — Mr. Warner
 * Dan Stanton — Mr. Warner's Brother
 * Matthew Lillard — Himself
 * Jeff Gordon — Himself
 * Kevin McCarthy — Dr. Miles Bennell
 * Michael Jordan — Himself
 * Mark Lawrence — Acme VP, Stating the Obvious
 * Ron Perlman — Acme VP, Never Learning

Character Voices

 * Joe Alaskey — Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Beaky Buzzard and Mama Bear
 * Jeff Glen Bennett — Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam and Nasty Canasta
 * Billy West — Elmer Fudd and Dr. Lorre
 * Eric Goldberg — Tweety Bird, Speedy Gonzales and Marvin the Martian
 * Bruce Lanoil — Pepé le Pew
 * June Foray — Granny
 * Bob Bergen — Porky Pig
 * Casey Kasem — Shaggy
 * Frank Welker — Scooby-Doo
 * Brendan Fraser — Tasmanian Devil and Tasmanian She-Devil
 * Danny Mann — Robo Dog, Spy Car
 * Mel Blanc (archival recordings) — Gremlin Car
 * Paul Julian (archival recordings) — The Road Runner (uncredited)
 * Bill Roberts (archival recordings) — Michigan J. Frog (uncredited)

title: Looney Tunes: Back in Action