The search for the truth for truth’s sake is the mark of the historian.
B. H. LIDDELL HARTThe 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.
More B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes
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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.
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Natural hazards, however formidable, are inherently less dangerous and less uncertain than fighting hazards. All conditions are more calculable, all obstacles more surmountable than those of human resistance.
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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.
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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.
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The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.
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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.
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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.
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Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.
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For even the best of peace training is more theoretical than practical experience … indirect practical experience may be the more valuable because infinitely wider.
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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.
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To ensure attaining an objective, one should have alternate objectives. An attack that converges on one point should threaten, and be able to diverge against another. Only by this flexibility of aim can strategy be attuned to the uncertainty of war.
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To foster the people’s willing spirit is often as important as to possess the more concrete forms of power.
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The most dangerous error is failure to recognize our own tendency to error.
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If you want peace, understand war.
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The urge to gain release from tension by action is a precipitating cause of war.
B. H. LIDDELL HART