If quick, I survive.If not quick, I am lost.This is "death.
To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.
Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy.
Never venture, never win!
One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own terms or fights not at all.
Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.
O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible, and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.
Secret operations are essential in war upon them the army relies to make its every move.
If we know that our own men are in a condition to attack, but are unaware that the enemy is not open to attack, we have gone only halfway towards victory.
He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
Quickness is the essence of the war.
The art of war is the art of deception.
The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.
The worst calamities that befall an army arise from hesitation
If his forces are united, separate them.
Balk the enemy's power force him to reveal himself.
One need not destroy one's enemy. One need only destroy his willingness to engage.
If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have...