He whose ranks are united in purpose will be victorious.

When you know both yourself as well as your competition, you are never in danger. To know yourself and not others, gives you half a chance of winning. Knowing neither yourself or your competition puts you in a position to lose.

The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.

Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory: He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.

A kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.

Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits; it cannot be obtained inductively from experience, nor by any deductive calculation.

The essential factor of military success is speed, that is taking advantage of others' unpreparedness or lack of foresight, their failure to catch up, going by routes they do not expect, attacking where they are not on guard. This you cannot accomplish with hesitation.