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

B. H. Liddell Hart

The predominance of moral factors in all military decisions. On them constantly turns the issue of war and battle. In the history of war they form the more constant factors, changing only in degree, whereas the physical factors are different in almost every war and every military situation.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Issues Military War
If you find your opponent in a strong position costly to force, you should leave him a line of retreat as the quickest way of loosening his resistance. It should, equally, be a principle of policy, especially in war, to provide your opponent with a ladder by which he can climb down.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Military Strong War
Air Power is, above all, a psychological weapon – and only short-sighted soldiers, too battle-minded, underrate the importance of psychological factors in war.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Air Soldier War
The unexpected cannot guarantee success, but it guarantees the best chance of success.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Chance Guarantee Military
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.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Decay Military War
War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Evil Military War
In should be the duty of every soldier to reflect on the experiences of the past, in the endeavor to discover improvements, in his particular sphere of action, which are practicable in the immediate future.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Past Soldier Spheres
Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. But helplessness induces hopelessness.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Issues Loss War
For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Military Produce
The theory of the indirect approach operates on the line of least expectation.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Expectation Indirect Line
If you want peace, understand war.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Peace Want War
It is only to clear from history that states rarely keep faith with each other, save in so far (and so long) as their promises seem to them to combine with their interests.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Long Military Promise
As has happened so often in history, victory had bred a complacency and fostered an orthodoxy which led to defeat in the next war.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Military Victory War
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.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Power Truth War
The more usual reason for adopting a strategy of limited aim is that of awaiting a change in the balance of force … The essential condition of such a strategy is that the drain on him should be disproportionately greater than on oneself.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Balance Military Usual
The nearer the cutting off point lies to the main force of the enemy, the more immediate the effect; whereas the closer to the strategic base it takes place, the greater the effect.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Cutting Lying Military

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

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

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