The true objective of war is peace.

In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory. Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are inexhaustible as Heaven and Earth, unending as the flow of rivers and streams; like the sun and moon, they end but to begin anew; like the four seasons, they pass away to return once more.

Ground which can be abandoned but is hard to re-occupy is called entangling.

Of all rewards none [is] more liberal than those given to secret agents.

Carefully compare the opposing army with your own, so that you may know where strength is superabundant and where it is deficient.

When the higher officers are angry and insubordinate, and on meeting the enemy give battle on their own account from a feeling of resentment, before the commander-in-chief can tell whether or not he is in a position to fight, the result is ruin.

The consummate leader cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it is in his power to control success.