What enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge.

Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical.

Without local guides, your enemy employs the land as a weapon against you.

The military has no constant form, just as water has no constant shape - adapt as you face the enemy, without letting them know beforehand what you are going to do.

By altering his arrangements and changing his plans, the skillful general keeps the enemy without definite knowledge. By shifting his camp and taking circuitous routes, he prevents the enemy from anticipating his purpose. At the critical moment, the leader of an army acts like one who has climbed up a height and then kicks away the ladder behind him.

Weak leadership can wreck the soundest strategy

When the common soldiers are too strong and their officers too weak, the result is insubordination. When the officers are too strong and the common soldiers too weak, the result is collapse.