B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes, Thoughts and images

The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.

In war, the chief incalculable is the human will.

The most dangerous error is failure to recognize our own tendency to error.

If you want peace, understand war.

Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.

The theory of the indirect approach operates on the line of least expectation.

War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it.

The unexpected cannot guarantee success, but it guarantees the best chance of success.

For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought.

A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.

Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. But helplessness induces hopelessness.

Avoid self-righteousness like the devil- nothing is so self-blinding.

The military weapon is but one of the means that serve the purposes of war: one out of the assortment which grand strategy can employ.

The most effective indirect approach is one that lures or startles the opponent into a false move - so that, as in ju-jitsu, his own effort is turned into the lever of his overthrow.

The search for the truth for truth's sake is the mark of the historian.

In the case of a state that is seeking not conquest but the maintenance of its security, the aim is fulfilled if the threat is removed - if the enemy is led to abandon his purpose.

For the spread and endurance of an idea the originator is dependent on the self-development of the receivers and transmitters.

The higher level of grand strategy [is] that of conducting war with a far-sighted regard to the state of the peace that will follow.

Every action is seen to fall into one of three main categories, guarding, hitting, or moving. Here, then, are the elements of combat, whether in war or pugilism.

Guerrilla war is a kind of war waged by the few but dependent on the support of many.

No man can exactly calculate the capacity of human genius and stupidity, nor the incapacity of will.

With growing experience, all skillful commanders sought to profit by the power of the defensive, even when on the offensive.

Inflict the least possible permanent injury, for the enemy of to-day is the customer of the morrow and the ally of the future

The implied threat of using nuclear weapons to curb guerrillas was as absurd as to talk of using a sledge hammer to ward off a swarm of mosquitoes.

While hitting one must guard... In order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.

To foster the people's willing spirit is often as important as to possess the more concrete forms of power.