Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
- Source
- The Art of War, III.2 (Attack by Stratagem), trans. Lionel Giles
- Written
- c. 5th century BC
About this quotation
This is paragraph 2 of the chapter “Attack by Stratagem”. Other translators render it as “to subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill”, which is the form more often quoted online.