Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small.

Apparent confusion is a product of good order; apparent cowardice, of courage; apparent weakness, of strength.

If this is long delayed, weapons are blunted and morale depressed.

It is through the dispositions of an army that its condition may be discovered. Conceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory,; show your dispositions, and your condition will become patent, which leads to defeat.

He who wishes to fight must first count the cost. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be dampened. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.

When he utilizes combined energy, his fighting men become as it were like unto rolling logs or stones. For it is the nature of a log or stone to remain motionless on level ground, and to move when on a slope; if four-cornered, to come to a standstill, but if round-shaped to go rolling down.

Those who excel in war first cultivate their own humanity and and maintain their laws and institutions. By these means they make their governments invincible.