The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
Ultimate excellence lies not in winning every battle, but in defeating the enemy without ever fighting.
No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.
To Subdue an enemy without fighting is the greatest of skills
What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.
To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
He who wishes to fight must first count the cost
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.
All warfare is based on deception. If your enemy is superior, evade him. If angry, irritate him. If equally matched, fight and if not: split and re-evaluate.
The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.
One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own terms or fights not at all.
Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.
Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence.
Fighting with a large army under your command is nowise different from fighting with a small one: it is merely a question of instituting signs and signals.
If a battle can not be won do not fight it.
Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even though the ruler forbid it; if fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler's bidding.
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.
No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are. Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.
In desperate position, you must fight.
Know the enemy and know yourself.
To capture the enemy's entire army is better than to destroy it; to take intact a regiment, a company, or a squad is better than to destroy them. For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the supreme of excellence. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.
This does not mean that the enemy is to be allowed to escape. The object is to make him believe that there is a road to safety, and thus prevent his fighting with the courage of despair. After that, you may crush him.
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