Sun Tzu Quotes
It is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for the purposes of spying, and thereby they achieve great results.
Sun Tzu. The Art of War. Translated by Lionel Giles, Luzac & Co., 1910, p. 176.
His concern was well placed. For over half a century thereafter, the tail did wag the dog, and while there have been many successful covert operations, the risk and current pressure siphoned off talent and management attention from intelligence—the Central Intelligence Agency’s primary job.
Von Stuben brought a formal discipline and organization to the American army and is referred to as “The Father of the U. S. Army.” Beaumarchais was a leading dramatist as well as a secret agent and his communiqués were doubtless the most flowery in the history of espionage and spying.
Sun Tzu was a Chinese general, military strategist, writer, and philosopher who lived in the Eastern Zhou period of ancient China. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War, an influential work of military strategy that has affected both Western and East Asian philosophy and military thinking. His works focus much more on alternatives to battle, such as stratagem, delay, the use of spies and alternatives to war itself, the making and keeping of alliances, the uses of deceit, and a willingness to submit, at least temporarily, to more powerful foes. Sun Tzu is revered in Chinese and East Asian culture as a legendary historical and military figure. His birth name was Sun Wu and he was known outside of his family by his courtesy name Changqing. The name Sun Tzu by which he is best known in the Western World is an honorific which means "Master Sun".
