Cleverness has never been associated with long delays
Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting
Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive. Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack.
To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself
If you wish to feign confusion in order to lure the enemy on, you must first have perfect discipline; if you wish to display timidity in order to entrap the enemy, you must have extreme courage; if you wish to parade your weakness in order to make the enemy over-confident, you must have exceeding-strength
He does not demand perfection from the untalented
One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own terms or fights not at all
Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack
Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions
