Sun Tzu Quotes

414 quotes in 3055 categories

• Wait by the river long enough and the body of your enemy will float by you.
• All war is deception.
• One need not destroy one's enemy. One need only destroy his willingness to engage.
• To capture the enemy's entire army is better than to destroy it; to take intact a regiment, a company, or a squad is better than…
• This does not mean that the enemy is to be allowed to escape. The object is to make him believe that there is a road…
• Subtle and insubstantial, the expert leaves no trace; divinely mysterious, he is inaudible. Thus he is master of his enemy's fate.
• He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
• He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
• For them to perceive the advantage of defeating the enemy, they must also have their rewards.
• In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it…
• Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger,…
• All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
• If our soldiers are not overburdened with money, it is not because they have a distaste for riches; if their lives are not unduly long,…
• He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.
• For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme…
• If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, the general is to blame. But if his orders are…
• Bestow rewards without respect to customary practice; publish orders without respect to precedent. Thus you may employ the entire army as you would one man.
• It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them…
• To perceive victory when it is known to all is not really skilful... It does not take much strength to lift a hair, it does…
• When envoys are sent with compliments in their mouths, it is a sign that the enemy wishes for a truce.

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