Sun Tzu’s Ancient Life Lessons Men Learn Too Late

To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.

There is no instance of a notion benefitting from prolonged warfare.

A leader leads by example not by force.

To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.

In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them.

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If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.

If the mind is willing, the flesh could go on and on without many things.

The captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept.

Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.

Be where your enemy is not.

Who does not know the evils of war cannot appreciate its benefits.

Attack is the secret of defense, defense is the planning of an attack.

If quick-I survive, if not quick-I am lost, this is ‘death’.

He will win-who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.

Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is grate while it is small.

Never trust a friend who is silent about your flaws.

Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.

Even the finest sword plunged into salt water will eventually rust.

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.

One need not destroy one’s enemy. One need only destroy his willingness to engage.

It is easy to love your friend, but sometimes the hardest lesson to learn is to love your enemy.

Great results can be achieved with small forces.

Know yourself and you will win all battles.

If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will be weak everywhere.

Wheels of justice grind slow but grind fine.

Disorder came from order, fear came from courage, and weakness came from strength.

There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is noise before defeat.

In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.

Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons, and they will follow you into the deepest valley.

Move swift as the wind and closely-formed as the wood, attack like a fire and be still as the mountain.

Opportunities multiply as they are seized.

When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil, when full, starve them. When settled, make them move.

Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent’s fate.

The whole secret lies in confusion the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent.

What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.

Ultimate excellence lies not in winning every battle, but in defeating the enemy without ever fighting.

An enemy is a friend who knows too much about you.

If your friend is friends with your enemy, it means that you should not hang out with this friend.

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.

Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys, look on them as your own beloved sons.

Thus the expert in battle moves the enemy, and is not moved by him.

Rouse him and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity, force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots.

Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.

If you ignore both, your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.

Who wishes to fight must first count the cost.

Beware of sugar that is mixed with poison, beware of the fly that sat on a dead snake.

You can’t trust a man, who has nothing to lose.