Basil 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.”

—Basil Liddell Hart (1895-1970)

“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 (1895-1970)

“If you wish for peace, understand war.”

—Basil Liddell Hart (1895-1970)

“But time and surprise are the two most vital elements in war.”

—Basil Liddell Hart (1895-1970)

"The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out."

—Basil Liddell Hart (1895-1970)

"The most dangerous error is failure to recognize our own tendency to error."

—Basil Liddell Hart (1895-1970)

"War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it."

—Basil Liddell Hart (1895-1970)

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

—Basil Liddell Hart (1895-1970)

"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."

—Basil Liddell Hart (1895-1970)

"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 (1895-1970)

"A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge."

—Basil Liddell Hart (1895-1970)

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

—Basil Liddell Hart (1895-1970)

"The search for the truth for truth's sake is the mark of the historian."

—Basil Liddell Hart (1895-1970)