Peace proposals unaccompanied by a sworn covenant indicate a plot.

Maneuvering with an army is advantageous; with an undisciplined multitude, most dangerous.

The business of a general is to kick away the ladder behind soldiers when they have climbed up a height.

When a general, unable to estimate the enemy's strength, allows an inferior force to engage a larger one, or hurls a weak detachment against a powerful one, and neglects to place picked soldiers in the front rank, the result must be rout.

And therefore those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle and are not brought there by him.

The supreme excellence is not to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles. The supreme excellence is to subdue the armies of your enemies without having to fight them.

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