B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes

United Kingdom, Author
October 31, 1895 – January, 29, 1970.

Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart, commonly known throughout most of his career as Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, was an English soldier, military historian and military theorist. Following World War II, he was a proponent of the West German rearmament and the moral rehabilitation of the German Wehrmacht. As part of these two interconnected initiatives, Liddell Hart significantly contributed to the creation of the Rommel myth.

Also known as Military Historian, Military Theorist, Journalist, Soldier

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.

B. H. Liddell Hart
- War
- Peace
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
- Fighting
- Enemy

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
- Military
- Belief
- Demand
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.

B. H. Liddell Hart
- Effort
There are two thousand years of experience to tell us that the only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old idea out.

B. H. Liddell Hart