Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.
If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know...
If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.
No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.
Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster
It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy's one,
To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete.
Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
Disorder came from order, fear came from courage, weakness came from strength.
Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when there are no fixed duties assigned to officers and men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazar...
One may know how to conquer without being able to do it.
The supreme excellence is not to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles. The supreme excellence is to subdue the armies of your enemies without even having to fight them.
Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory: 1 He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. 2 He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.3 He w...
Those skilled at making the enemy move do so by creating a situation to which he must conform; they entice him with something he is certain to take, and with lures of ostensible profit they await him...
Hence that general is skilful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skilful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.
Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content.But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.
The end and aim of spying in all its five varieties is knowledge of the enemy; and this knowledge can only be derived, in the first instance, from the converted spy. Hence it is essential that the con...