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‘To bear acorns at their summit, and bees in the middle; And the sheep are bowed down with the weight of their fleeces,’

Stir up thy mind, and recall thy wits again from thy natural dreams, and visions, and when thou art perfectly awoken, and canst perceive that they were but dreams that troubled thee, as one newly awakened out of another kind of sleep look upon these worldly things with the same mind as thou didst upon those, that thou sawest in thy sleep.

The barest notion of a State must include four or five men.

[Literally, "the leader of the first division will be torn away."]

(The Tao) which originated all under the sky is to be considered as the mother of them all.

And if so, we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things.

We shall be unable to turn natural advantages to account unless we make use of local guides.

The ancients who showed their skill in practising the Tao did so, not to enlighten the people, but rather to make them simple and ignorant.

Thus we say, 'He ne'er contends, And therein is his might.' Thus we say, 'Men's wills he bends, That they with him unite.' Thus we say, 'Like Heaven's his ends, No sage of old more bright.'

We may take it then that an army without its baggage-train is lost; without provisions it is lost; without bases of supply it is lost.

Hear, too, of Intellect and Steadfastness The threefold separation, Conqueror-Prince! How these are set apart by Qualities.

And will you have a work better done when the workman has many occupations, or when he has only one?

[Some of the Chinese text is unintelligible to the Chinese commentators, who paraphrase the sentence. I submit my own rendering without much enthusiasm, being convinced that there is some deep-seated corruption in the text. On the whole, it is clear that Sun Tzŭ does not approve of a lengthy march being undertaken without supplies. Cf. infra, § 11.]

That is true; yet neither will it be a very small State which contains all these.

[Tu Yu quotes a saying of T’ai Kung which has passed into a proverb: "You cannot shut your ears to the thunder or your eyes to the lighting—so rapid are they." Likewise, an attack should be made so quickly that it cannot be parried.]

[1] See Col. Henderson’s biography of Stonewall Jackson, 1902 ed., vol. II, p. 490.

The Art of War — Chapter 7: Chapter 6: Weak Points And Strong (part 2/2)

Sun Tzŭ said: In war, the general receives his commands from the sovereign.

What (Tao's) skilful planter plants Can never be uptorn; What his skilful arms enfold, From him can ne'er be borne. Sons shall bring in lengthening line, Sacrifices to his shrine. 2.

Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention.