Basil Liddell Hart Quotes

17 Sourced Quotes

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.

Basil Liddell Hart
For if we merely take what obviously appears the line of least resistance, its obviousness will appeal to the opponent also; and this line may no longer be that of least resistance. In studying the physical aspect, we must never lose sight of the psychological, and only when both are combined is the strategy truly an indirect approach, calculated to dislocate the opponent's balance.

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

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

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

Basil Liddell Hart
An army should always be so distributed that its parts can aid each other and combine to produce the maximum possible concentration of force at one place, while the minimum force necessary is used elsewhere to prepare the success of the concentration.

Basil Liddell Hart
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.

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

Basil 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.

Basil Liddell Hart
Direct experience is inherently too limited to form an adequate foundation either for theory or for application. At the best it produces an atmosphere that is of value in drying and hardening the structure of thought. The greater value of indirect experience lies in its greater variety and extent. History is universal experience, the experience not of another, but of many others under manifold conditions.

Basil Liddell Hart
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.

Basil Liddell Hart
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.

Basil Liddell Hart
In war the chief incalculable is the human will, which manifests itself in resistance, which in turn lies in the province of tactics. Strategy has not to overcome resistance, except from nature. Its purpose is to diminish the possibility of resistance, and it seeks to fulfil this purpose by exploiting the elements of movement and surprise.

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

Basil Liddell Hart
Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent, and always assist him to save his face. Put yourself in his shoes — so as to see things through his eyes. Avoid self-righteousness like the devil — nothing so self-blinding.

Basil Liddell Hart
Loyalty is a noble quality, so long as it is not blind and does not exclude the higher loyalty to truth and decency.

Basil Liddell Hart
Self-exhaustion in war has killed more states than any foreign assailant.

Basil Liddell Hart