Other conditions being equal, if one force is hurled against another ten times its size, the result will be the flight of the former.

Those whose upper and lower ranks have the same desire are victorious.

To a surrounded enemy, you must leave a way of escape.

If this is long delayed, weapons are blunted and morale depressed.

Now an army is exposed to six several calamities, not arising from natural causes, 1 but from faults for which the general is responsible. These are: (1) Flight; (2) insubordination; (3) collapse; (4) ruin; (5) disorganisation; (6) rout.

If soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you, they will not prove submissive; and, unless submissive, then will be practically useless. If, when the soldiers have become attached to you, punishments are not enforced, they will still be unless.

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.