Be the first to seize intersecting ground, that is ground which lies the intersections of borders or intersections of main thoroughfares of commerce and travel. Your occupation of it gives you access to all who border it and all who would covet it. On intersecting ground, if you establish alliances you are safe, if you lose alliances you are in peril.

Go into emptiness, strike voids, bypass what he defends hit him where he does not expect you.

You can ensure the success of your attacks if you only attack places that are undefended. You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked. Therefore, that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.

There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefitted.

The good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.

Subtle and insubstantial, the expert leaves no trace; divinely mysterious, he is inaudible. Thus he is master of his enemy's fate.

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.