“All warfare is based on deception.”

What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.

Bravery without forethought, causes a man to fight blindly and desperately like a mad bull. Such an opponent, must not be encountered with brute force, but may be lured into an ambush and slain.

Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy’s purpose.

Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive.

If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent’s fate.

Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent’s fate.

Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.

Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.

Great results, can be achieved with small forces.

Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots.

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.

Do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat.

Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.

Mundus vult decipi’—the world wants to be deceived.

When you love someone, you can’t lie to them. It hurts to much. It’s a deception that goes too deep.

Deceit is the false road to happiness; and all the joys we travel through to vice, like fairy banquets, vanish when we touch them.

A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.

Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception.

Truth lives on in the midst of deception.

The fundamental factor of self-deception is this constant desire to be something in this world and in the world hereafter.

The world we live in is a forest of frost, with crystal ice webs of lies and deception.