Tag: business, strategy, war

These military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand.

So long as victory can be attained,  stupid haste is preferable to clever dilatoriness.

Conceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory;  show your dispositions, and your condition will become patent, which leads to defeat.

The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.

who does not know the evils of war cannot appreciate its benefits

do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat

Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive.

If his forces are united, separate them.

To begin by bluster, but afterwards to take fright at the enemy’s numbers, shows a supreme lack of intelligence.

Be stern in the council-chamber, [Show no weakness, and insist on your plans being ratified by the sovereign.] so that you may control the situation.

At first, then, exhibit the coyness of a maiden,  until the enemy gives you an opening; afterwards emulate the rapidity of a running hare, and it will be too late for the enemy to oppose you.