B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
More B. H. Liddell Hart quote about:
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“In war, the chief incalculable is the human will.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“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 military weapon is but one of the means that serve the purposes of war: one out of the assortment which grand strategy can employ.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“In a campaign against more than one state or army, it is more fruitful to concentrate first against the weaker partner than to attempt the overthrow of the stronger in the belief that the latter's defeat will automatically involve the collapse of the others.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“The effect to be sought is the dislocation of the opponent's mind and dispositions - such an effect is the true gauge of an indirect approach.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“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.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“This high proportion of history's decisive campaigns, the significance of which is enhanced by the comparative rarity of the direct approach, enforces the conclusion that the indirect is by far the most hopeful and economic form of strategy.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“While there are many causes for which a state goes to war, its fundamental object can be epitomized as that of ensuring the continuance of its policy - in face of the determination of the opposing state to pursue a contrary policy. In the human will lies the source and mainspring of conflict.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“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.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“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 -
“It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off ... since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“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 -
“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 -
“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.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“While the nominal strength of a country is represented by its numbers and resources, this muscular development is dependent on the state of its internal organs and nerve-system - upon its stability of control, morale, and supply.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“It is thus more potent, as well as more economical, to disarm the enemy than to attempt his destruction by hard fighting ... A strategist should think in terms of paralysing, not of killing.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“The most consistently successful commanders, when faced by an enemy in a position that was strong naturally or materially, have hardly ever tackled it in a direct way. And when, under pressure of circumstances, they have risked a direct attack, the result has commonly been to blot their record with a failure.”
-- 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 -
“In reality, it si more fruitful to wound than to kill. While the dead man lies still, counting only one man less, the wounded man is a progressive drain upon his side.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“...regrettable as it may seem to the idealist, the experience of history provides little warrant for the belief that real progress, and the freedom that makes progress possible, lies in unification. For where unification has been able to establish unity of ideas it has usually ended in uniformity, paralysing the growth of new ideas. And where the unification has merely brought about an artificial or imposed unity, its irksomeness has led through discord to disruption.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“The hydrogen bomb is not the answer to the Western peoples' dream of full and final insurance of their security ... While it has increased their striking power it has sharpened their anxiety and deepened their sense of insecurity.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“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.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“The easiest and quickest path into the esteem of traditional military authorities is by the appeal to the eye, rather than to the mind. The `polish and pipeclay' school is not yet extinct, and it is easier for the mediocre intelligence to become an authority on buttons, than on tactics.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“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 -
“A modern state is such a complex and interdependent fabric that it offers a target highly sensitive to a sudden and overwhelming blow from the air.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart -
“The practical value of history is to throw the film of the past through the material projector of the present on to the screen of the future.”
-- B. H. Liddell Hart
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