Top 100 Art Of War War Quotes
#1. If your enemy has the power to see into the future, make sure you are the author of that future.
Lionel Suggs
#2. The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#3. The greatest remedy that is used against a plan of the enemy is to do voluntarily what he plans that you do by force.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#4. When you think about new-born babies being killed in our own lifetime,' he said, 'all the efforts of culture seem worthless. What have people learned from all our Goethes and Bachs? To kill babies?
Vasily Grossman
#5. Polish your wisdom: learn public justice, distinguish between good and evil, study the ways of different arts one by one.
Miyamoto Musashi
#6. 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
#7. War is not at all such a difficult art as people think ... In reality it would seem that he is vanquished who is afraid of his adversary and the the whole secret lies in that.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#8. I see the bomber pictures as an anti-war statement ... which they aren't - at all. Pictures like that don't do anything to combat war. They only show one tiny aspect of the subject of war - maybe only my own childish feelings of fear and fascination with war and with weapons of that kind.
Gerhard Richter
#9. 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
#10. The essential factor of military success is speed, that is taking advantage of others' unpreparedness or lack of foresight, their failure to catch up, going by routes they do not expect, attacking where they are not on guard. This you cannot accomplish with hesitation.
Sun Tzu
#11. An apocryphal story recounts the dilhemma of a man during the Civil War who could not decide whether to join the Confederate or Union forces. Finally he put on a gray coat and blue pants, and both sides shot him.
John Frohnmayer
#12. Laying aside also all considerations of works and engines of war, the invention of which has long since reached its limit, and for the improvement of which I see no further hope in the applied arts, I shall recognize the following types of stratagems connected with siege operations ...
Frontinus
#13. The forces of adversaries are more diminished by the loss of those who flee than of those who are killed.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#14. If not in the interests of the state, do not act. If you cannot succeed, do not use troops. If you are not in danger, do not fight.
Sun Tzu
#15. Historically, art has always had a market. When one medieval fiefdom defeated another they would drag back its jewels, gold, tapestries and art objects as the spoils of war. Art equaled power, riches and culture.
Arne Glimcher
#16. Art, industry, and commerce, so long crushed and overborne, were stirring into renewed life, and a crowd of adventurous men, nurtured in war and incapable of repose, must seek employment for their restless energies in fields of peaceful enterprise.
Francis Parkman
#17. It is the business of a general to be serene and inscrutable, impartial and self-controlled.
Sun Tzu
#18. It is the business of a general to be quiet and thus ensure secrecy; upright and just, and thus maintain order.
Sun Tzu
#19. Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.
Sun Tzu
#20. 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
#21. Nothing is more difficult than the art of maneuvering for advantageous positions.
Sun Tzu
#22. 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
#23. These are six ways of courting defeat, which must be carefully noted by the general who has attained a responsible post.
Sun Tzu
#24. In the armies, and among every ten men, there must be one of more life, of more heart, or at least of more authority, who with his spirit, with his words, and with his example keeps the others firm and disposed to fight.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#25. In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory.
Sun Tzu
#26. Nothing is of greater importance in time of war than in knowing how to make the best use of a fair opportunity when it is offered.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#27. Art transcends war. Art is the language of God and war is the barking of men. Beethoven is bigger than war.
Fannie Hurst
#28. Then also pretexts for seizing property are never wanting, and one who begins to live by rapine will always find some reason for taking the goods of others, whereas causes for taking life are rarer and more quickly destroyed.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#29. Businesses once grew by one of two ways; grass roots up, or by acquisition ... Today businesses grow through alliances - all kinds of dangerous alliances. Joint ventures and customer partnerings which, by the way, very few people understand.
Peter Drucker
#30. The surrealists, and the modern movement in painting as a whole, seemed to offer a key to the strange postwar world with its threat of nuclear war. The dislocations and ambiguities, in cubism and abstract art as well as the surrealists, reminded me of my childhood in Shanghai.
J.G. Ballard
#31. With the Mongolian horse warfare, I did a lot of research into the Mongol art of war.
John Fusco
#32. The arts can do more to sustain the peace than all the wars, the armaments, and the threats and warnings of politicians.
Arthur Miller
#33. On each side of the war against war, hopes soar, hopes dive, hour by hour now. Resignations abound, timetables slip, and the world waits, mesmerised. I'm off to Melbourne to record an arts chat show.
Margo Kingston
#34. 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
#35. Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization.
Sun Tzu
#36. The General who in advancing does not seek personal fame, and in withdrawing is not concerned with avoiding punishment, but whose only purpose is to protect the people and promote the best interests of his sovereign, is the precious jewel of the state.
Sun Tzu
#37. It is a doctrine of war not to assume the enemy will not come, but rather to rely on one's readiness to meet him; not to presume that he will not attack, but rather to make one's self invincible.
Sun Tzu
#38. 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
#39. Originals by Adam Grant is one of the best books I've read on how to be more creative at work and how to think outside the box, sell your ideas, and make a difference. 10.YOUR CREATIVE LIFE. The War of Art by Steven
Vishen Lakhiani
#40. War destroys. War obliterates. War is ruination. And war begets more war. After thousands of years of experience proving this, and reams of literature and countless works of art exposing it, when are people going to learn?
Lisa Simeone
#41. Peace proposals unaccompanied by a sworn covenant indicate a plot.
Sun Tzu
#42. 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
#43. 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
#44. Concentrate your energy and hoard your strength.
Sun Tzu
#45. Whatever a work of art may be, the artist certainly cannot dare to be simple. He must have a nature as complicated and as violent, as totally unsuggestive of the word innocence, as a modern war.
Rebecca West
#46. 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
#47. When settling disputes between his subjects, he should ensure that his judgement is irrevocable; and he should be so regarded that no one ever dreams of trying to deceive or trick him.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#48. The arts of peace and the arts of war are like two wheels of a cart which, lacking one, will have difficulty in standing.
Kuroda Nagamasa
#49. Agitate him and ascertain the pattern of his movement.
Sun Tzu
#50. The war was the end of an era, in art as well. And we were trying to create a new philosophy.
Douglas Sirk
#51. 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
#52. The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.
Samuel Butler
#53. 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
#55. 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
#56. Princes should delegate to others the enactment of unpopular measures and keep in their own hands the means of winning favours.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#57. The art of war is the art of deception.
Sun Tzu
#58. 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
#59. Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war.
Edward Gibbon
#60. The art of war," I told him, "is to make the enemy do your bidding.
Bernard Cornwell
#61. When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them. When settled, make them move.
Sun Tzu
#62. 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
#63. 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
#64. The Art of War is self-explanatory
Sun Tzu
#65. 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
#66. 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
#68. 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
#70. In a similar way, The Art of War pinpoints anger and greed as fundamental causes of defeat.
Sun Tzu
#71. 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
#72. 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
#73. 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
#74. 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
#75. 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
#76. 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
#77. The power of art is as powerful as weapons of mass destruction; it's just where war destroys, art inspires. But in order to inspire, you need to react to it. And, if it doesn't penetrate your mind, you can't react to it.
Nicolas Winding Refn
#78. Every little advantage is of great moment when men have to come to blows.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#79. Carefully study the well-being of your men, and do not overtax them. Concentrate your energy and hoard your strength. Keep your army continually on the move, and devise unfathomable plans.
Sun Tzu
#80. 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
#81. Anything worthwhile is opposed. Steven Pressfield (War of Art) calls this the Resistance.
Michael Hyatt
#82. After all, what more does a true genius want? The mind itself is the palace where all the real treasures, the works of art, the indulgences exist.
Alex Scarrow
#83. Remember Ping-fa, Sun Tzu,' Art of War - read between the lines: kick ass and take names later."
Mad
Stargirl
Linden Morningstar
#84. The world has a way of undermining complex plans. This is particularly true in fast moving environments. A fast moving environment can evolve more quickly than a complex plan can be adapted to it. By the time you have adapted, the target has changed.
Carl Von Clausewitz
#85. When I look back on the townscapes now, they do seem to me to recall certain images of the destruction of Dresden during the war.
Gerhard Richter
#86. Not till the end of the war will there be any time for art or love or magic again. Perhaps never again.
Mary Butts
#87. And so long as they were at war, their power was preserved, but when they had attained empire they fell, for of the arts of peace they knew nothing, and had never engaged in any employment higher than war.
Aristotle.
#88. When orders are consistently trustworthy and observed, the relationship of a commander with his troops is satisfactory.
Sun Tzu
#89. 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
#90. H.L.Mencken's war aims, according to the handful of observers who deigned to notice his conflict, were the overthrow of American Democracy, the Christian religion, and the YMCA. He was also credited with trying to wipe out poets and luncheon orators.
Ben Hecht
#91. WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity.
Ambrose Bierce
#92. Racial injustice around the world. Poverty. War. When man solves these three great problems he will have squared his moral progress with his scientific progress. And, more importantly, he will have learned the practical art of living in harmony.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#93. 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
#94. The Sun Tzu School Ping-fa Directive.
Be strong and continually aware. Manage your strength and that of others. When essential, engage on your terms. Be observant, adaptive, and subtle. Do not lose control. Act decisively. Conclude quickly. Don't Fight!
David G. Jones
#95. The art of land warfare is an art of genius, of inspiration. On the sea nothing is genius or inspiration; everything is positive or empiric.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#96. 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
#97. If there was a day of the week I could skip it would be Monday. Clients had too much time to think and worry over a long weekend and by Monday they were often riddled with fear and anxiety.
Stan Turner
#98. We are part of the world creation, and we ourselves create nothing. Our knowledge allows us to make use of all the forces already in existence, our art to interpret emotions already felt. One big war, an epidemic, and we collapse into ignorance and darkness, fit sons of chimpanzees.
Arshile Gorky
#99. The two most potent post-war orthodoxies
socialist politics and modernist art
have at least one feature in common: they are bothforms of snobbery, the anti-bourgeois snobbery of people convinced of their right to dictate to the common man in the name of the common man.
Roger Scruton
#100. What do you think an artist is? ... he is a political being, constantly aware of the heart breaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.
Pablo Picasso
