Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.

The successful person has unusual skill at dealing with conflict and ensuring the best outcome for all.

Those who are victorious plan effectively and change decisively. They are like a great river that maintains its course but adjusts its flow...they have form but are formless. They are skilled in both planning and adapting and need not fear the result of a thousand battles: for they win in advance, defeating those that have already lost.

So a military force has no constant formation, water has no constant shape: the ability to gain victory by changing and adapting according to the opponent is called genius.

The height of strategy, is to attack your opponent's strategy.

As water shapes its flow in accordance with the ground, so an army manages its victory in accordance with the situation of the enemy.

Ponder and deliberate before you make your move. He will conquer who has learned the artifice of deviation. Such is the art of maneuvering.