B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes

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

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

In war, the chief incalculable is the human will.

In strategy the longest way round is often the shortest way there- a direct approach to the object exhausts the attacker and hardens the resistance by compression, whereas an indirect approach loosens the defender's hold by upsetting his balance.

If you want peace, understand war.

The downfall of civilized states tends to come not from the direct assaults of foes, but from internal decay combined with the consequences of exhaustion in war.

Ensure that both plan and dispositions are flexible, adaptable to circumstances. Your plan should foresee and provide for a next step in case of success or failure.

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

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

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

Air Power is, above all, a psychological weapon - and only short-sighted soldiers, too battle-minded, underrate the importance of psychological factors in war.

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

I used to think that the causes of war were predominantly economic. I came to think that they were more psychological. I am now coming to think that they are decisively "personal," arising from the defects and ambitions of those who have the power to influence the currents of nations.

The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men.

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.

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

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.

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.

It should be the aim of grand strategy to discover and pierce the Achilles' heel of the opposing government's power to make war. Strategy, in turn, should seek to penetrate a joint in the harness of the opposing forces. To apply one's strength where the opponent is strong weakens oneself disproportionately to the effect attained. To strike with strong effect, one must strike at weakness.

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

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

In any problem where an opposing force exists and cannot be regulated, one must foresee and provide for alternative courses. Adaptability is the law which governs survival in war as in life ... To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it; the best chance of overcoming such obstruction is to have a plan that can be easily varied to fit the circumstances met.

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