Winning isn't enough. The acme of all skill is to defeat your enemy before taking the field.
The peak efficiency of knowledge and strategy is to make conflict unnecessary.
If those who are sent to draw water begin by drinking themselves, the army is suffering from thirst.
Concentrate your energy and hoard your strength.
Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity.
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.