Sun Tzu Quotes

The cloud never comes from the quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.

I love to fool you once, I love to fool you twice, I love to fool you a third time. And just when you think it's all over, I have what I call that Carrie hand-out-of-the-grave moment. Just when you think it's all over, I'm going to hit you with just one more. I can't help myself.

When the enemy is at ease, be able to weary him; when well fed, to starve him; when at rest, to make him move. Appear at places to which he must hasten; move swiftly where he does not expect you.

Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of business.

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.

Social Engineering - the art of replacing what works with what sounds good.

King Shrewd is expecting me, rather he isn't expecting me, and that is precisely why I must go to him now.

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.

There's no such thing as a war against terrorism. It's idiotic. These are slogans. These are lies. It's advertising, which is the only art form we ever invented and developed.

But she'd wanted him there and there he was. A lamb ready for slaughter.

The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting. For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain; as long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours; they offer you their blood, their goods, their life, and their children, as I have before said, when the necessity is remote; but when it approaches, they revolt.

The ultimate in disposing one's troops is to be without ascertainable shape. Then the most penetrating spies cannot pry in nor can the wise lay plans against you.

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from snares, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.

A prince... must learn from the fox and the lion... One must be a fox in order to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten off wolves. Those who act simply as lions are stupid. So it follows that a prudent ruler cannot, and must not, honour his word when it places him at a disadvantage and when the reasons for which he made his promise no longer exist.

It probably is harder to fool people when they know they're going to be fooled.

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.

How laudable it is for a prince to keep good faith and live with integrity, and not with astuteness, every one knows. Still the experience of our times shows those princes to have done great things who have had little regard for good faith, and have been able by astuteness to confuse men's brains, and who have ultimately overcome those who have made loyalty their foundation.

Pitching was about fooling people, manipulating them, making them believe in something that ultimately wasn't there. Great pitching was great lying.

Things rarely happen for a single reason. Even the cleverest and most skilled manipulators recognize that their real art lies in making use of that which they cannot predict.

The good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.

It's been predictable, in the sense of 'expect the unexpected'.

Take a good look around and you'll find people trying to mess with your mind.

So long as the deceit ran along quiet and monotonous, all of us let ourselves be deceived, abetting it unawares or maybe through cowardice.

One of the first lessons a necromancer learns is the art of playing dumb. Of course, one problem with playing dumb is that is seeps into your everyday life. ~Jaime Vegas

It is pardonable to be defeated, but never to be surprised.