Quotation
Last reviewed:
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
Sunzi (Sun Tzu) · Military strategy · Ancient · traditional Warring States text; Giles's English 1910
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that victory is framed as a knowledge problem: the other's situation and your own, so ignorance of either loses battles even for the strong. A competing reading, which the book's later career invites, lifts a military maxim into business and private life and treats it as moral wisdom about any conflict. The sentence is in chapter 3 of the received Art of War, in the English most people meet through Lionel Giles in 1910. A single general Sunzi as author is historically uncertain.
Did Sunzi (Sun Tzu) really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A genuine line from the text, given in English translation. Wording differs between translators.
Where it comes from
The Art of War, chapter 3, in the tradition of Lionel Giles's translation
Approximate date: traditional Warring States text; Giles's English 1910.
How to use it
Before a negotiation or a hard conversation with a landlord, write what you actually know about the other side and what you are assuming about your own limits: money, time, temper. The gap is the risk he is talking about. Knowing how to win a battle does not tell you whether the fight is one you should be in.
A mindset reading
A strategy quotation is not a moral justification. The habit is to keep the military context in view, and to ask a separate question about whether winning is the right aim. Competence and warrant come apart.
Understand the philosophy
The chapter answers how a commander avoids needless defeat. 'Know' means a worked-out grasp of conditions, not a hunch. The Art of War values preparation, deception, and, where possible, winning without battle. It entered the culture of philosophical quotation much later, often stripped of the war that gives the lines their sense.
- knowledge
- power
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that victory is framed as a knowledge problem: the other's situation and your own, so ignorance of either loses battles even for the strong. A competing reading, which the book's later career invites, lifts a military maxim into business and private life and treats it as moral wisdom about any conflict. The sentence is in chapter 3 of the received Art of War, in the English most people meet through Lionel Giles in 1910. A single general Sunzi as author is historically uncertain.
Did Sunzi (Sun Tzu) really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A genuine line from the text, given in English translation. Wording differs between translators.
Which work is it in?
The Art of War, chapter 3, in the tradition of Lionel Giles's translation Approximate date: traditional Warring States text; Giles's English 1910.