When your opponent gives you an opening, be swift as a hare.

War is a matter of vital importance to the state; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied.

Hence the saying: One may know how to conquer without being able to do it.

Therefore the good fighter will be terrible in his onset, and prompt in his decision.

the leader of armies is the arbiter of the people's fate, the man on whom it depends whether the nation shall be in peace or in peril.

It is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for the purposes of spying, and thereby they achieve great results.

An army may be likened to water, for just as flowing water avoids the heights and hastens to the lowlands, so an army avoids strength and strikes weakness.