Top 350 Sun Tzu Quotes (2025 Update)
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301. “When a general, unable to estimate the enemy’s strength, allows an inferior force to engage a larger one, or hurls a weak detachment against a powerful one, and neglects to place picked soldiers in the front rank, the result must be rout.”

— Sun Tzu

302. “It is through the dispositions of an army that its condition may be discovered. Conceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory,; show your dispositions, and your condition will become patent, which leads to defeat.”

— Sun Tzu

303. “As water shapes its flow in accordance with the ground, so an army manages its victory in accordance with the situation of the enemy.”

— Sun Tzu

304. “If their forces are substantial, prepare for them; if their forces are strong, avoid them.”

— Sun Tzu

305. “It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them instructions and care for them. Thus double agents are recruited and used.”

— Sun Tzu

306. “In a position of this sort, even though the enemy should offer us an attractive bait, it will be advisable not to stir forth, but rather to retreat, thus enticing the enemy in his turn; then, when part of his army has come out, we may deliver our attack with advantage.”

— Sun Tzu

307. “For them to perceive the advantage of defeating the enemy, they must also have their rewards.”

— Sun Tzu

308. “When the position is such that neither side will gain by making the first move, it is called temporising ground.”

— Sun Tzu

309. “With regard to narrow passes, if you can occupy them first, let them be strongly garrisoned and await the advent of the enemy.”

— Sun Tzu

310. “War is a matter of vital importance to the state.”

— Sun Tzu

311. “Unless you enter the tiger’s lair, you cannot get hold of the tiger’s cub’s.”

— Sun Tzu

312. “The King is only fond of words, and cannot translate them into deeds.”

— Sun Tzu

313. “We cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our neighbors. We are not fit to lead an army on the march unless we are familiar with the face of the country...”

— Sun Tzu

314. “To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.”

— Sun Tzu

315. “Factors in the art of warfare are: First, calculations; second, quantities; third, logistics; fourth, the balance of power; and fifth, the possibility of victory is based on the balance of power.”

— Sun Tzu

316. “Hiding order beneath the cloak of disorder is simply a question of subdivision; concealing courage under a show of timidity presupposes a fund of latent energy; masking strength with weakness is to be effected by tactical dispositions.”

— Sun Tzu

317. “Where the army is, prices are high; when prices rise the wealth of the people is exhausted.”

— Sun Tzu

318. “No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.”

— Sun Tzu

319. “If those who are sent to draw water begin by drinking themselves, the army is suffering from thirst.”

— Sun Tzu

320. “Invincibility depends on one’s self; the enemy’s vulnerability on him.”

— Sun Tzu

321. “The general that hearkens to my counsel and acts upon it, will conquer: let such a one be retained in command! The general that hearkens not to my counsel nor acts upon it, will suffer defeat: – let such a one be dismissed!”

— Sun Tzu

322. “There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefitted.”

— Sun Tzu

323. “So it is that good warriors take their stance on ground where they cannot lose, and do not overlook conditions that make an opponent prone to defeat.”

— Sun Tzu

324. “Other conditions being equal, if one force is hurled against another ten times its size, the result will be the flight of the former.”

— Sun Tzu

325. “It is imperative to contest all factions for complete victory, so the army is not garrisoned and the profit can be total. This is the law of strategic siege.”

— Sun Tzu

326. “In the tumult and uproar, the battle seems chaotic, but there is no disorder, the troops appear to be milling about in circles but cannot be defeated.”

— Sun Tzu

327. “Should one ask: ‘how do I cope with a well-ordered enemy host about to attack me?’ I reply: seize something he cherishes and he will conform to your desires.”

— Sun Tzu

328. “Should the enemy forestall you in occupying a pass, do not go after him if the pass is fully garrisoned, but only if it is weakly garrisoned.”

— Sun Tzu

329. “Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. If they will face death, there is nothing they may not achieve.”

— Sun Tzu

330. “Hence the saying: The enlightened ruler lays his plans well ahead; the good general cultivates his resources.”

— Sun Tzu

331. “In conflict, straightforward actions generally lead to engagement, surprising actions generally lead to victory.”

— Sun Tzu

332. “Order or disorder depends on organisation; courage or cowardice on circumstances; strength or weakness on dispositions.”

— Sun Tzu

333. “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.”

— Sun Tzu

334. “When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal.”

— Sun Tzu

335. “The end and aim of spying in all its five varieties is knowledge of the enemy; and this knowledge can only be derived, in the first instance, from the converted spy. Hence it is essential that the converted spy be treated with the utmost liberality.”

— Sun Tzu

336. “Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity.”

— Sun Tzu

337. “If soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you, they will not prove submissive; and, unless submissive, then will be practically useless. If, when the soldiers have become attached to you, punishments are not enforced, they will still be unless.”

— Sun Tzu

338. “If I wish to engage, then the enemy, for all his high ramparts and deep moat, cannot avoid engagement; I attack that which he is obliged to rescue.”

— Sun Tzu

339. “If our soldiers are not overburdened with money, it is not because they have a distaste for riches; if their lives are not unduly long, it is not because they are disinclined to longevity.”

— Sun Tzu

340. “It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy’s one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two.”

— Sun Tzu

341. “When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when there are no fixed duties assigned to officers and men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner, the result is utter disorganization.”

— Sun Tzu

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

— Sun Tzu

343. “According to my assessment, even if you have many more troops than others, how can that help you to victory?”

— Sun Tzu

344. “These are six ways of courting defeat, which must be carefully noted by the general who has attained a responsible post.”

— Sun Tzu

345. “Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day. This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy’s condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity.”

— Sun Tzu

346. “If we know that the enemy is open to attack, but are unaware that our own men are not in a condition to attack, we have gone only halfway towards victory.”

— Sun Tzu

347. “Of all those in the army close to the commander, none is more intimate than the secret agent.”

— Sun Tzu

348. “The sovereign must have full knowledge of the activities of the five sorts of agents. This knowledge must come from the double agents, and therefore it is mandatory that they be treated with the utmost liberality.”

— Sun Tzu

349. “Therefore the good fighter will be terrible in his onset, and prompt in his decision.”

— Sun Tzu

350. “When the soldiers stand leaning on their spears, they are faint from want of food.”

— Sun Tzu