B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes

An ability to embrace new ideas, routinely challenge old ones, and live with paradox will be the effective leader's premier trait.

All scientists know of colleagues whose minds are so well equipped with the means of refutation that no new idea has the temerity to seek admittance. Their contribution to science is accordingly very small.

there is no prescribed route to follow to arrive at a new idea. You have to make the intuitive leap. But the difference is that once you've made the intuitive leap you have to justify it by filling in the intermediate steps. N my case, it often happens that I have an idea, but then I try to fill in the intermediate steps and find that they don't work, so I have to give it up.

Clinging uncritically to traditional ideas and beliefs often serves to obscure or deny real facts of our life history.

The hardest part about gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche. As long as that niche is occupied, evidence and proof and logical demonstration get nowhere. But once the niche is emptied of the wrong idea that has been filling it:; once you can honestly say, "I don't know", then it becomes possible to get at the truth.

Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.

When we are in the grasp of illusion - or, for that matter, whenever we have a new idea - instead of searching for ways to prove our ideas wrong, we usually attempt to prove them correct. Psychologists call this the confirmation bias, and it presents a major impediment of our ability to break free from the misinterpretation of randomness.

We want to be open-minded enough to accept radial new ideas when they occasionally come along, but we don't want to be so open-minded that our brains fall out.

One form of religion perpetually gives way to another; if religion did not change it would be dead. ... Each time the new ideas appear they are seen at first as a deadly foe threatening to make religion perish from the earth; but in the end there is a deeper insight and a better life with ancient follies and prejudices gone.

Living truth is that alone which has its origins in thinking. Just as a tree bears year after year the same fruit which is each year new, so must all permanently valuable ideas be continually born again in thought.

It is perhaps the most characteristic feature of the intellectual that he judges new ideas not by their specific merits but by the readiness with which they fit into his general conceptions, into the picture of the world which he regards as modern or advanced.

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

Conversation is good - you might not agree with everyone, but at least it gives you a chance to contemplate someone else's ideas.

Truth cannot be sacrificed at the altar of pretended tolerance. Real tolerance is deference to all ideas, not indifference to the truth.

Let me give you some advice: Try to approach things without preconceived ideas, without supposing you already know everything there is to know about them. Get that trick down and you'll be surprised at what's really all around you.

How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?

There is plenty of time to argue with new ideas later. They key is to take careful notes first and debate second.

My goal is to create a therapy of ideas, to try to bring in new ideas so that we can see the same old problems differently.

Usually when we hear or read something new, we just compare it to our own ideas. If it is the same, we accept it and say that it is correct. If it is not, we say it is incorrect. In either case, we learn nothing.

Innovation- any new idea-by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience.

It is a gift when someone can challenge you and open your mind to new ideas.

A liberally educated person meets new ideas with curiosity and fascination. An illiberally educated person meets new ideas with fear.

Al forms of consensus about ''great'' books and ''perennial'' problems, once stabilized, tend to deteriorate eventually into something philistine. The real life of the mind is always at the frontiers of ''what is already known.'' Those great books don't only need custodians and transmitters. To stay alive, they also need adversaries. The most interesting ideas are heresies.

The minute you get a religion you stop thinking. Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas.

One of the things I'm real proud of is I just made a deal with 20th Century Fox, and I've got my own production company now. I'm developing some television and movies for other people because I have a lot of fresh new ideas. To write is what I love the most.