Sun Tzu Quotes

It is important to seek out the spies that the enemy has sent to spy on you so you can bribe them to really spy for you.

Agents of disruption, subversion, sabotage and disinformation tunnelers and smugglers, listeners and forgers, trainers and recruiters and talent spotters and couriers and watchers and seducers, assassins and balloonists, lip readers and disguise artists.

I saw a limit to what I was giving as kind of a scam I was running on the KGB, by giving them people that I knew were their double agents fed to us.

There is only one law of espionage—there are always going to be spies.

There are more foreign intelligence officers inside the US now, working against US interests, than there were at the height of the cold war.

I've known several spies who have wanted to become novelists. And novelists who became spies, of course.

I handed over names and compromised so many CIA agents in the Soviet Union.

Since real spies are so good, you never really know what actual spying is. But I do think spying is a lot more dangerous than we are led to believe.

Every department in Washington…contained numerous traitors and spies.

Having watched the form of our traitors for a number of years, I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilization. It's a lout's game.

Espionage is largely separate from the mainstream of foreign policy … you nail the spy and you punish him, and you move on.

Exposing the activities of a foreign intelligence service renders them ineffective, since it removes plausible deniability, which is the hallmark of covert intelligence operations.

You couldn't trust anyone or anything that belonged to the world of espionage.

I am always up to steal secrets from smart people.

I could have stopped it after they paid me the $50,000. I wouldn't even have had to go on to do more than I already had: just the double agents' names that I gave.

Perhaps my information hurt the Soviet Union more than it helped. I have no idea. It was not something I ever discussed with the KGB officers that I was dealing with.

If you set foot on your enemies' land, get spies on them. Choose those whom you count on for their truthfulness and advice, whether Arabs or inhabitants of that land. Liars' accounts would not benefit you, even if some of them were true; the deceiver is a spy against you and not for you.

If you’re going to be involved with espionage, you’ve got to be motivated. It’s not fun and games. It’s dirty and dangerous. There’s always the chance that you’re going to get burned.

Since real spies are so good, you never really know what actual spying is. But I do think spying is a lot more dangerous than we are led to believe.

Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity; They cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness; Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports; Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of warfare; If a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he must be put to death together with the man to whom the secret was told.

All women are natural born espionage agents.

The enemy's spies who have come to spy on us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become double agents and available for our service. It is through the information brought by the double agent that we are able to acquire and employ local and inward spies. It is owing to his information, again, that we can cause the doomed spy to carry false tidings to the enemy.

The Confederates had suspected Wild Bill of being a spy for two or three days, and had watched him closely.

The human spy, in terms of the American espionage effort, had never been terribly pertinent.

When I handed over the names and compromised so many CIA agents in the Soviet Union, I had come to the conclusion that the loss of these sources to the U.S. would not compromise significant national defense, political, diplomatic interests.