If there is disturbance in the camp, the general's authority is weak. If the banners and flags are shifted about, sedition is afoot. If the officers are angry, it means that the men are weary.

Set the troops to their tasks without imparting your designs.

First learn to become invincible, then wait for your enemy's moment of vulnerability.

With regard to ground of this nature, be before the enemy in occupying the raised and sunny spots, and carefully guard your line of supplies. Then you will be able to fight with advantage.

To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

Thus those skilled in war subdue the enemy's army without battle .... They conquer by strategy.

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