B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes

Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.

Distrust your judgment the moment you can discern the shadow of a personal motive in it.

It is an acknowledged fact that we perceive errors in the work of others more readily than in our own.

Doubt your doubts before you doubt your beliefs.

Only as you do know yourself can your brain serve you as a sharp and efficient tool. Know your own failings, passions, and prejudices so you can separate them from what you see.

The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses.

I am struck by how quickly I am prone to judgmentalism.

I believe sometimes I make some mistakes. And I don't think they are life-threatening mistakes.

Our thoughts and our feelings, of course, are not wholly objective, they're inherently subjective. And that's the danger, and I think as long as we're aware of it and can push back against it, I don't think that these two views are necessarily incompatible.

An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.

A person himself believes that all the other portraits are good likenesses except the one of himself.

You cannot watch yourself dispassionately.

Self criticism must be my guide to action, and the first rule for its employment is that in itself it is not a virtue, only a procedure.

I'm my own severest critic, and I realize when I make mistakes.

I don't look at my work in a critical or analytical way; I just don't think of myself objectively. It doesn't interest me.

When we own up our mistakes some people interpret it as if we are wrong. They too commit mistakes.

Being unbiased is a lot like being humble: as soon as you think you are, you aren’t. Neither are a finite state of being but a continuous struggle to not allow our perspectives poison our opinions.

For me, my greatest weakness is also my greatest strength: I'm a complete overthinker about everything.

I make mistakes, and sometimes in split seconds. Then seconds later I know how wrong I was.

We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom and our own error therein.

I'd ask people to keep in mind the idea that if you really understand something, it's even more important for you to consider the possibility of your wrongness. Even if it takes someone dumber than you to point that out.

We can at least try to understand our own motives, passions, and prejudices, so as to be conscious of what we are doing when we apeal to those of others. This is very difficult, because our own prejudice and emotional bias always seems to us so rational.

To recognize our bias toward error should teach us modesty and reflection, and to forgive it should help us avoid the inhumanity of thinking we ourselves are not as fallible as those who, in any instance, seem most at fault. Science can give us knowledge, but it cannot give us wisdom. Nor can religion, until it puts aside nonsense and distraction and becomes itself again.

No one seemed able to look at themselves, coolly, from the outside. Their reality was all that could be seen in the light cast ahead by their own wishful thinking.

When thou art offended at any man's fault, forthwith turn to thyself and reflect in what manner thou doest error thyself. For by attending to this thou wilt quickly forget thy anger, if this consideration is also added, that the man is compelled; for what else could he do? or, if thou art able, take away from him the compulsion.