To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
百戦百勝、非善之善者也。不戦而屈人之兵、善之善者也。
Military Strategists
Sun Tzu
A 5th-century BCE Chinese military theorist whose treatise 'The Art of War' remains the most influential work on strategy ever written. His principles of deception, intelligence, and winning without fighting transcend warfare and have been adopted across business, diplomacy, and competitive strategy worldwide.
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Sun Tzu's Other Quotes
Related Quotes
A million hearts as one.
-- Mōri Motonari
He who plans more, wins. He who plans less, loses.
-- Mōri Motonari
攻撃を一点に集約せよ、無駄な事はするな。
-- Oda Nobunaga
I came as dew, I vanish as dew — all that I was, all I achieved at Naniwa, is a dream within a dream.
-- Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Wisdom that comes only after hearing others' opinions is not true wisdom.
-- Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Swift as the wind, silent as the forest, fierce as fire, immovable as the mountain.
-- Takeda Shingen