Sun Tzu: Trending quotes (page 2)

This attributed to Sun Tzu and his book The Art of War. Actually James Clavell’s foreword in The Art of War http://www.scribd.com/doc/42222505/The-Art-Of-War states http://www.collegetermpapers.com/TermPapers/History_Other/Sun_Tzu_vs_The_Wisdom_of_the_Desert.shtml, “’the true object of war is peace.’” Therefore the quote is stated by James Clavell, but the true origin of Clavell's quotation is unclear. Nonetheless the essence of the quote, that a long war exhausts a state and therefore ultimately seeking peace is in the interest of the warring state, is true, as Sun Tzu in Chapter II Waging Wars says that "There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on." This has been interpreted by Lionel Giles http://www.dutchjoens.info/SunTzu%20-%20Art%20of%20War.pdf as "Only one who knows the disastrous effects of a long war can realize the supreme importance of rapidity in bringing it to a close."
Dr. Hiroshi Hatanaka, President of Kobe College, Nishinomiya, Hyōgo, Japan is recorded as saying "the real objective of war is peace" in Pacific Stars and Stripes Ryukyu Edition, Tokyo, Japan (10 February 1949), Page 2, Column 2.
Misattributed

Source: The Art of War, Chapter I · Detail Assessment and Planning

Sometimes erroneously prepended to the opening line "The art of war is of vital importance to the State", but appears to be a variation of the Roman motto "Si vis pacem, para bellum". It's not clear who first misattributed this phrase to Sun Tzu. The earliest appearance of the phrase in Google Books is 1920, when it appeared in a pharmaceutical journal, but no attribution was given then.
Misattributed

This is sometimes attributed to Sun Tzu in combination with the above quote, as well as alone, but it too has not been sourced to any published translation of The Art of War, though it is similar in concept to his famous statement in Ch. 3 : "It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles..."
Misattributed

Source: The Art of War, Chapter III · Strategic Attack

人皆知我所以勝之形，而莫知吾所以制勝之形。
Source: The Art of War, Chapter VI · Weaknesses and Strengths

Source: The Art of War, Chapter IX · Movement and Development of Troops

Attributed implicitly to Sun Tzu by "William Riker" in the episode The Last Outpost of the TV program Star Trek: The Next Generation, but no source for this quote predates the episode's airing in 1987.
Misattributed

This has often been attributed to Sun Tzu and sometimes to Petrarch. It comes most directly from a line spoken by Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II (1974), written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola:
My father taught me many things here. He taught me in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
Niccolò Machiavelli, who is also sometimes credited, wrote on the subject in The Prince:
It is easier for the prince to make friends of those men who were contented under the former government, and are therefore his enemies, than of those who, being discontented with it, were favourable to him and encouraged him to seize it.
Misattributed

Source: The Art of War, Chapter XIII · Intelligence and Espionage

Source: The Art of War, Chapter I · Detail Assessment and Planning

Variant: The expert in battle seeks his victory from strategic advantage and does not demand it from his men.
Source: The Art of War, Chapter V · Forces

Source: The Art of War, Chapter XIII · Intelligence and Espionage

Source: The Art of War, Chapter VI · Weaknesses and Strengths

(zh-TW) 微乎微乎，至於無形；神乎神乎，至於無聲；故能為敵之司命。
Alternative translation: Subtle and insubstantial, the expert leaves no trace; divinely mysterious, he is inaudible. Thus he is master of his enemy's fate.
Alternative translation: O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.
The Art of War, Chapter VI · Weaknesses and Strengths

Source: The Art of War, Chapter X · Terrain

Sun Tzu among many other military thinkers and leaders believed in fate and determination from the correct application of theory, the state of the opponent's and one's own power, and a code for the general and a code for the soldier to follow, rather than the Machiavellian type of intuition that evokes an evolution of opportunism that brought great historical consequences as it dominated over the classical and medieval ethical doctrines. Thus this statement is contrary to Sun Tzu principles. Nevertheless, there is a possible relation to the quote: Quickness is the essence of the war.
Misattributed