If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.

If you are far from the enemy, make him believe you are near.

Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports.

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.

Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day. This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy's condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity.

Don't flail against the world, use it. Flexibility is the operative principle in the art of war.

Generally in war the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this.