Sun Tzu
When envoys are sent with compliments in their mouths, it is a sign that the enemy wishes for a truce. If the enemy's troops march up angrily and remain facing ours for a long time without either joining battle or removing demands, the situation is one that requires great vigilance and circumspection. To begin by bluster, but afterward to take fright at the enemy's numbers, shows a supreme lack of intelligence.Collection: Art
The sovereign must have full knowledge of the activities of the five sorts of agents. This knowledge must come from the double agents, and therefore it is mandatory that they be treated with the utmost liberality.Collection: Agents
To perceive victory when it is known to all is not really skilful. Everyone calls victory in battle good, but it is not really good.Collection: War
The natural formation of the country is the soldier's best ally; but a power of estimating the adversary, of controlling the forces of victory, and of shrewdly calculating difficulties, dangers and distances, constitutes the test of a great general.Collection: Country
In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory. Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are inexhaustible as Heaven and Earth, unending as the flow of rivers and streams; like the sun and moon, they end but to begin anew; like the four seasons, they pass away to return once more.Collection: Art
Generally in war the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this.Collection: Art
When he utilizes combined energy, his fighting men become as it were like unto rolling logs or stones. For it is the nature of a log or stone to remain motionless on level ground, and to move when on a slope; if four-cornered, to come to a standstill, but if round-shaped to go rolling down.Collection: Art
Now an army is exposed to six several calamities, not arising from natural causes, 1 but from faults for which the general is responsible. These are: (1) Flight; (2) insubordination; (3) collapse; (4) ruin; (5) disorganisation; (6) rout.Collection: Art
From a position of this sort, if the enemy is unprepared, you may sally forth and defeat him. But if the enemy is prepared for your coming, and you fail to defeat him, then, return being impossible, disaster will ensue.Collection: Art
The rising of birds in their flight is the sign of an ambuscade. Startled beasts indicate that a sudden attack is coming.Collection: Bird
In executing an Artful Strategy: When ten times greater, surround them; When five times greater, attack them; When two times greater, scatter them. If the opponent is ready to challenge: When fewer in number, be ready to evade them; When unequal to the match, be ready to avoid them. Even when the smaller opponents have a strong position, the larger opponent will capture them.Collection: Strong
What is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy.Collection: Art
Weak leadership can wreck the soundest strategy; forceful execution of even a poor plan can often bring victory.Collection: Victory
So a military force has no constant formation, water has no constant shape: the ability to gain victory by changing and adapting according to the opponent is called genius.Collection: Military
To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.Collection: Peace
If you follow the enemy's shifts and changes, you can always find a way to win.Collection: Winning
No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.Collection: Art
The expert in battle seeks his victory from strategic advantage and does not demand it from his men.Collection: Leadership
The good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.Collection: Art
Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical.Collection: Art
Every battle is won before it is fought.Collection: Battle
In desperate position, you must fight.Collection: Fighting
When envoys are sent with compliments in their mouths, it is a sign that the enemy wishes for a truce.Collection: War
Thus the expert in battle moves the enemy, and is not moved by him.Collection: War
The military has no constant form, just as water has no constant shape - adapt as you face the enemy, without letting them know beforehand what you are going to do.Collection: Art
There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must not be attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested, commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed.Collection: War
In the midst of difficulties we are always ready to seize an advantage, we may extricate ourselves from misfortune.Collection: Art
What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.Collection: Clever
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 haphazard manner, the result is utter disorganization.Collection: Art
Who does not know the evils of war cannot appreciate its benefits.Collection: Art
Peace proposals unaccompanied by a sworn covenant indicate a plot.Collection: Peace
Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted.Collection: Art
Until death itself comes, no calamity need be fearedCollection: Art Of War
It is ten thousand times cheaper to pay the best spies lavishly than even a tiny army poorly.Collection: Army
One defends when his strength is inadequate, he attacks when it is abundant.Collection: Art Of War
Rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive himCollection: Art Of War
By altering his arrangements and changing his plans, the skillful general keeps the enemy without definite knowledge. By shifting his camp and taking circuitous routes, he prevents the enemy from anticipating his purpose. At the critical moment, the leader of an army acts like one who has climbed up a height and then kicks away the ladder behind him.Collection: Art
Know the enemy and know yourself.Collection: Fear
Now a soldier's spirit is keenest in the morning; by noonday it has begun to flag; and in the evening, his mind is only on returning to camp.Collection: Morning
Birds rising in flight is a sign that the enemy is lying in ambush; when the wild animals are startled and flee he is trying to take you unaware.Collection: Art
It is sufficient to estimate the enemy situation correctly and to concentrate your strength to capture him. There is no more to it than this. He who lacks foresight and underestimates his enemy will surely be captured by him.Collection: Enemy
If this is long delayed, weapons are blunted and morale depressed.Collection: Art
Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory: He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.Collection: Art
If you are far from the enemy, make him believe you are near.Collection: War
Of all those in the army close to the commander none is more intimate than the secret agent; of all rewards none more liberal than those given to secret agents; of all matters none is more confidential than those relating to secret operations.Collection: War
Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only be obtained from other men.Collection: Art
There is nothing more difficult than tactical maneuvering. The difficult consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain. Thus, to take a long and circuitous route after enticing the enemy out of the way, and though starting after him to contrive to reach the goal before him, shows knowledge of the artifice of deviation.Collection: Art
Nothing is more difficult than the art of maneuver. What is difficult about maneuver is to make the devious route the most direct and to turn misfortune to advantage.Collection: Art
With regard to precipitous heights, if you are beforehand with your adversary, you should occupy the raised and sunny spots, and there wait for him to come up.Collection: Art