Sun Tzu Quotes

If we know that the enemy is open to attack, but are unaware that our own men are not in a condition to attack, we have gone only halfway towards victory.

Strategy is the most important department of the art of war, and strategical skill is the highest and rarest function of military genius.

Know the enemy, know yourself; your victory will never be endangered. Know the ground, know the weather; your victory will then be total.

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.

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 neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Act after having made assessments. The one who first knows the measure of far and near wins - this is the rule of armed struggle.

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.

Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.

The art of war in its highest point of view is policy.

The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself. Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Our military plans for everything.

Carefully compare the opposing army with your own, so that you may know where strength is superabundant and where it is deficient.

He that makes war without many mistakes has not made war very long.

The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish ... the kind of war on which they are embarking.

In all their wars against the French they [the Americans] never showed such conduct, attention and perseverance as they do now.

I have every confidence in the ultimate success of our joint cause; but success in modern war requires something more than courage and a willingness to die: it requires careful preparation.

We always make the mistake, the fatal mistake in the case of military people, of imagining that each war will be a kind of version of the one that happened previously.

If asked how to cope with a great host of the enemy in orderly array and on the point of marching to the attack, I should say: "Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds dear; then he will be amenable to your will." Rapidity is the essence of war: take advantage of the enemy's unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots.

Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy's purpose.

The secret of war lies in the communications.

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.

One who sets the entire army in motion to chase an advantage will not attain it.

In war, numbers alone confer no advantage. Do not advance relying on sheer military power.

War is a matter of vital importance to the state; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied.