When envoys are sent with compliments in their mouths, it is a sign that the enemy wishes for a truce.

When you know both yourself as well as your competition, you are never in danger. To know yourself and not others, gives you half a chance of winning. Knowing neither yourself or your competition puts you in a position to lose.

When the soldiers stand leaning on their spears, they are faint from want of food.

Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity; They cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness; Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports; Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of warfare; If a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he must be put to death together with the man to whom the secret was told.

The end and aim of spying in all its five varieties is knowledge of the enemy; and this knowledge can only be derived, in the first instance, from the converted spy. Hence it is essential that the converted spy be treated with the utmost liberality.

All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.

A sovereign of high character and intelligence must be able to know the right man, should place the responsibility on him, and expect results.