The Art of War

  • October 6, 2025

This book helped me cultivate a steadier character—resilient when provoked and calm under pressure. I found in it both inspiration and the strength to endure difficult phases of life without slipping into impulsive action.

Some parts of the book that I enjoyed:

To fight and win all your battles is not the acme of skill. Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.

The general who cannot restrain his anger sends his men into battle like swarming ants; the result is that a third of his men are cut down while the city remains untaken.

There are five essential conditions for victory:

  1. He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
  2. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
  3. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout.
  4. He will win who, being well prepared, waits to attack the unprepared enemy.
  5. He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by his sovereign.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

The Art of War teaches us not to rely on the enemy’s not coming, but to rely on our readiness to receive him; not on the chance that he will not attack, but on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general: recklessness, which leads to destruction; cowardice, which leads to capture; a delicacy of honor, which is sensitive to shame; a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults; and over-solicitude for his men, which causes misgivings and trouble.

There are six ways of courting defeat:

  1. Failure to estimate the enemy’s strength;
  2. Lack of authority;
  3. Inadequate training;
  4. Ill-considered anger;
  5. Disregard of discipline;
  6. Failure to employ picked men.

Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight; place them in desperate straits, and they will survive. — The book describes a situation in which General Xin, before battle, blocks all avenues of retreat. He removes every alternative to fighting, leaving no uncertainty about the outcome: either defeat and death or victory—no thought of flight.