"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."