Top 100 Art Of War Quotes
#1. Why,' said he, 'does not the emperor, who has devised so many clever and efficient modes of improving the art of war, organize a regiment of lawyers, judges and legal practitioners, sending them in the hottest fire the enemy could maintain, and using them to save better men?
Alexandre Dumas
#2. Militarism has been by far the commonest cause of the breakdown of civilizations. The single art of war makes progress at the expense of all the arts of peace.
Arnold Joseph Toynbee
#3. Any army which does not train to use all the weapons, all the means and methods of warfare that the enemy possesses, or may possess, is behaving in an unwise or even criminal manner. This applies to politics even more than it does to the art of war.
Vladimir Lenin
#4. When Lionel Giles began his translation of Sun Tzu's ART OF WAR, the work was virtually unknown in Europe. Its introduction to Europe began in 1782 when a French Jesuit Father living in China, Joseph Amiot, acquired a copy of it, and translated
Sun Tzu
#5. The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one's deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.
Sun Tzu
#6. In a similar way, The Art of War pinpoints anger and greed as fundamental causes of defeat.
Sun Tzu
#7. Nagasaki was an embarrassment to the art of war
Don DeLillo
#8. The art of war," I told him, "is to make the enemy do your bidding.
Bernard Cornwell
#9. The art of war is the art of deception.
Sun Tzu
#10. Strategy is the most important department of the art of war, and strategical skill is the highest and rarest function of military genius.
George Stillman Hillard
#12. I have much to teach you. Come and learn the art of war from the one who invented it. (Takeshi)
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#13. The Art of War is self-explanatory
Sun Tzu
#14. Chess is all about getting the king into check, you see. It's about killing the father. I would say that chess has more to do with the art of murder than it does with the art of war.
Arturo Perez-Reverte
#15. The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Sun Tzu
#16. There's no way the writing staff of 'Game of Thrones' haven't read 'The Art of War.' There's definitely an influence on 'Game of Thrones' from this book in both a general way and on the character of Lord Baelish and his strategies.
Aidan Gillen
#17. The whole art of war consists of guessing at what is on the other side of the hill.
Arthur Wellesley
#18. Don't flail against the world, use it. Flexibility is the operative principle in the art of war.
Sun Tzu
#19. The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.
Sun Tzu
#20. Remember Ping-fa, Sun Tzu,' Art of War - read between the lines: kick ass and take names later."
Mad
Stargirl
Linden Morningstar
#21. We have long possessed the art of war and the science of war, which have been evolved in the minutest detail.
Fredrik Bajer
#22. It is bias to think that the art of war is just for killing people. It is not to kill people, it is to kill evil. It is a strategem to give life to many people by killing the evil of one person.
Yagyu Munenori
#23. You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#24. The art of chess is akin to the art of war itself; full of strategy and cunning, yet clever placements.
Jennifer Megan Varnadore
#25. I started to make a study of the art of war and revolution and, whilst abroad, underwent a course in military training. If there was to be guerrilla warfare, I wanted to be able to stand and fight with my people and to share the hazards of war with them.
Nelson Mandela
#26. In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.
Sun Tzu
#27. Surprise becomes effective when we suddenly face the enemy at one point with far more troops than he expected. This type of numerical superiority is quite distinct from numerical superiority in general: it is the most powerful medium in the art of war.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#28. Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic ... This is the only way to become a great general and master the secrets of the art of war.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#29. Sun Tzu Wu was a native of the Ch'i State. His Art of War brought him to the notice of Ho Lu, King of Wu. Ho Lu said to him: "I have carefully perused your 13 chapters. May I submit your theory of managing soldiers to a slight test?
Sun Tzu
#30. Fighting isn't all there is to the Art of War. The men who think that way, and
are satisfied to have food to eat and a place to sleep, are mere vagabonds. A
serious student is much more concerned with training his mind and disciplining
his spirit than with developing martial skills.
Eiji Yoshikawa
#31. The art of war is like the art of the courtesan; indeed they might be called sisters, since both are slaves of desperation.
Pietro Aretino
#32. It is imperative to master the principles of the art of war and learn to be unmoved in mind even in the heat of the battle.
Miyamoto Musashi
#33. Christopher Lynch has made the best and the first careful translation of Machiavelli's Art of War. With useful notes, an excellent introduction, an interpretive essay, glossary, and index, it is a treasure for readers of military history and Renaissance thought as well as for lovers of Machiavelli.
Harvey Mansfield
#34. In peace prepare for war, in war prepare for peace. The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence under no circumstances can it be neglected.
Sun Tzu
#35. The world will continue to change dramatically, but fighting and war can destroy us utterly. What we need now are techniques of harmony, not those of contention. The Art of Peace is required, not the Art of War.
Morihei Ueshiba
#36. The young man rushed toward them. "Stand and fight!" he was shouting. "Is running away the Yoshioka version of the Art of War? I personally don't want to kill you, but my Drying Pole's still thirsty. The least you can do, cowards that you are, is leave your heads behind.
Eiji Yoshikawa
#37. Sun Tzu said: The art of war recognises nine varieties of ground: (1) Dispersive ground; (2) facile ground; (3) contentious ground; (4) open ground; (5) ground of intersecting highways; (6) serious ground; (7) difficult ground; (8) hemmed-in ground; (9) desperate ground.
Sun Tzu
#38. The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.
Ulysses S. Grant
#39. It may safely be asserted that the art of war will soon be reduced to a simple question of expenditure and credit, and that the largest purse will be the strongest arm.
William Winwood Reade
#40. In the art of war, if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the approaching battles. But if you know only yourself and not the enemy, for every victory, there will also be defeat.
Emily Thorne
#41. It is a principle of the art of war that one should simply lay down his life and strike. If one's opponent also does the same, it is a even match. Defeating one's opponent is then a matter of faith and destiny.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo
#42. Thus the castle of each feudal chieftain became a school of chivalry, into which any noble youth, whose parents were from poverty unable to educate him to the art of war, was readily received.
Horatio Alger
#43. The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.
Sun Tzu
#44. The first way to lose a state is to neglect the art of war; the first way to gain a state is to be skilled in the art of war.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#45. We believe in the art of war. We are trying to get our competition to attack us with angry, virulent energy, so we can transform that into larger market share.
Marc Benioff
#46. Malone kept listening, a saying from Sun Tzu's ART OF WAR spinning through his mind. When your enemy is in the process of destroying himself, stay out of the way.
Steve Berry
#47. With the Mongolian horse warfare, I did a lot of research into the Mongol art of war.
John Fusco
#50. Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State.
Sun Tzu
#51. This is the body's nurse; but since man's wit
Found the art of cookery, to delight his sense,
More bodies are consumed and kill'd with it
Than with the sword, famine, or pestilence.
John Davies Of Hereford
#52. War is the art of killing each other brutally, diplomacy is the art of killing each other softly.
Bangambiki Habyarimana
#53. With regard to ground of this nature, be before the enemy in occupying the raised and sunny spots, and carefully guard your line of supplies. Then you will be able to fight with advantage.
Sun Tzu
#54. When the soldiers stand leaning on their spears, they are faint from want of food.
Sun Tzu
#55. Of course, it's wonderful to film any period piece - but especially 'Foyle's War' because the art direction is so imaginative and yet at the same time so real. You can open a drawer on set, and even though the camera never sees what's inside, it'll be filled with genuine 1940s documents.
Honeysuckle Weeks
#56. Like all art forms, film is a media as powerful as weapons of mass destruction; the only difference is that war destroys and film inspires.
Nicolas Winding Refn
#57. 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.
Sun Tzu
#58. Wheels of justice grind slow but grind fine
Sun Tzu
#59. And therefore those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle and are not brought there by him.
Sun Tzu
#60. I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war.
Abraham Lincoln
#61. The value of time, that is of being a little ahead of your opponent, often provides greater advantage than superior numbers or greater resources.
Sun Tzu
#62. When two sides who consider each other enemies converge in armed struggle, for the moment they are no longer enemies. They are fellow human beings who face the same two choices that their ancestors did for centuries before them: to destroy each other or to prosper together.
Thomas Huynh
#63. And the prince who has relied solely on their words, without making other preparations, is ruined, for the friendship which is gained by purchase and not through grandeur and nobility of spirit is merited but is not secured, and at times is not to be had.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#64. That's creativity in a nutshell. A messy tug-of-war with imagination to erase that feeling that nothing really matters anyway.
Zoe Whittall
#65. The triumph of the industrial arts will advance the cause of civilization more rapidly than its warmest advocates could have hoped, and contribute to the permanent prosperity and strength of the country far more than the most splendid victories of successful war.
Charles Babbage
#66. Rather than comparing [war] to art we could more accurately compare it to commerce, which is also a conflict of human interests and activities; and it is still closer to politics, which in turn may be considered as a kind of commerce on a larger scale.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#67. Every nation has its prestigious military academies - or so few of them - that reach not only the virtues of peace but also the art of attaining it? I mean attaining and protecting it by means other than weapons, the tools of war. Why are we surprised whenever war recedes and yields to peace?
Elie Wiesel
#68. If we do not wish to fight, we can prevent the enemy from engaging us even though the lines of our encampment be merely traced out on the ground. All we need to do is to throw something odd and unaccountable in his way.
Sun Tzu
#69. Diplomacy is a disguised war, in which states seek to gain by barter and intrigue, by the cleverness of arts, the objectives which they would have to gain more clumsily by means of war.
Randolph Bourne
#70. How could one of the most important and unbelievable moments in art history - not to mention the history of a world war - simply become a forgotten footnote? But that's exactly what happened.
Robert M. Edsel
#71. My mother supported my every artistic ambition. I don't wonder why. I'm beyond grateful. But when I think of my grandparents barely surviving the war, I feel so pampered. What an indulgence to be an artist. So this is it, this is all I can offer, to the living and to the dead.
Leela Corman
#72. 12
Lose Battles, But Win The War: Grand Strategy
Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead. Focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.
Robert Greene
#73. War stories deal in death. War illuminates love, while love is the greatest expression of hope, without which any story rings untrue to life. And to deny hope in a story about such darkness is to create false art.
Richard Flanagan
#74. And above all you ought to guard against leading an army to fight which is afraid or which is not confident of victory. For the greatest sign of an impending loss is when one does not believe one can win.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#75. This lonely, uncompromising, obsessive tug-of-war with presumed reality, this is what art is all about.
Tom Robbins
#76. 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
#77. No one ever mentioned it, but thousands of men welcomed World War II as a way to escape their humdrum lives rather than a chance to fight for God and country.
Art Buchwald
#78. In the end, we're just showmen. But, I think that it's an important factor. Not to be anything else but clear about that - for me, creativity is an important part of our evolution. Art has probably done more good for the world than war. But they're equally powerful. They both create revolutions.
Nicolas Winding Refn
#79. Walking away ends a battle in the heart of one,
and starts a war in the soul of another.
Jenim Dibie
#81. Life is seen as an ongoing war between art and philistinism - and although the philistines may win some of the battles, it is literature that always wins the war.
Helon Habila
#83. I don't read a lot of inspirational books for life. But for writing, I think the two best books are The War of Art and William Zinsser's On Writing Well. I read a lot of classics;
Donald Miller
#84. Art is the war against what we do not choose to feel. It's the battle of color, words, sound, and shape, and it rages for or against love.
Tarryn Fisher
#85. If the enemy leaves a door open, you must rush in.
Sun Tzu
#86. Leaders can change the tenor of the workplace and create harmony in motion toward a favorable result. So every time you say to your team, "Let's rock and roll," make sure you have already set up the stage to where they can actually perform like rock stars.
Thomas Huynh
#87. Humanity is as horrified and repulsed by real nature as it is by real death. Thus, we strike back against this formidable opponent with our sharpest weapon: our imagination. From this noble tool - born of necessity and elevated to beauty - culture was born, and the war against nature begun.
Anthony Marais
#88. It's great to listen to men talk about sports or fights or war or even hunting sometimes, but the presence of the other, the presence of art and beauty, which crude masculinity seems to discount, is essential. Real civilization and real manhood seem to me to include those.
James Salter
#89. The supreme excellence is not to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles. The supreme excellence is to subdue the armies of your enemies without having to fight them.
Sun Tzu
#90. When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them. When settled, make them move.
Sun Tzu
#91. They tell us that the rules of power and the rules of war are the same, the art is to deceive; and you will deceive, and be deceived in your turn, whether you are an ambassador or a suitor.
Hilary Mantel
#92. War is a matter of vital importance to the state; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied.
Sun Tzu
#93. Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war.
Edward Gibbon
#94. In the Somme valley, the back of language broke. It could no longer carry its former meanings. World War I changed the life of words and images in art, radically and forever. It brought our culture into the age of mass-produced, industrialized death. This, at first, was indescribable.
Robert Hughes
#95. Princes should delegate to others the enactment of unpopular measures and keep in their own hands the means of winning favours.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#96. Baseball is more like a novel than a war. It is like an ongoing, hundred-year work of art, peopled with thousands of characters, full of improbable events, anecdotes, folklore and numbers.
Luke Salisbury
#97. It is good to know one's enemy.
It is better to know one's self.
Max Hawthorne
#98. A battle that you win cancels any other bad action of yours. In the same way, by losing one, all the good things worked by you before become vain.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#99. In warfare, there are no constant conditions. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent will succeed and win.
Sun Tzu
#100. 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.
Sun Tzu
