Some of my Favorite Sun Tzu Quotes

1. Therefore, in your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military conditions, let them be made the basis of a comparison, in this wise.
2. All warfare is based on deception
3. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardour will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.
4. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting
5. One may know how to conquer without being able to do it
6. To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.
7. In respect of military method, we have, firstly, Measurement; secondly, Estimation of quantity; thirdly, Calculation; fourthly, Balancing of chances; fifthly, Victory.
8. In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory.
9. An army may march great distances without distress,if it marches through country where the enemy is not.
10. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.