“Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.”
Richard Adams book Watership Down
Source: Watership Down
Watership Down (1972)
“Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.”
Richard Adams book Watership Down
Source: Watership Down
“To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.”
Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty
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
“If you kill your enemies, they win.”
Justin Trudeau (1971) 23rd Prime Minister of Canada; eldest son of Pierre Trudeau
Attributed by Gavin McInnes (AKA Miles McInnes) of Rebel Media in the satirical video "Why Miles McInnes is moving back to Canada: Trudeau's 10 Greatest Quotes!" at 5m45s number 9/10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tpW1m-8yVQ&t=5m45s", along with accompanying article as Gavin McInnes “If you kill your enemies, they win”: Justin Trudeau’s greatest quotes! https://www.therebel.media/justin_trudeau_s_greatest_quotes released the same day, then repeated by Daniel Greenfield in his article "Surrendering to ISIS is the Only Way to Defeat It", Canada Free Press (31 March 2016) https://canadafreepress.com/article/surrendering-to-isis-is-the-only-way-to-defeat-it. A Reddit thread "Any evidence that Trudeau said 'if you kill your enemies, they win'?" https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/68iwe3/any_evidence_that_trudeau_said_if_you_kill_your/ questioning the veracity of the attribution was created in April 2017. No corroborating evidence was found to support the "McCinnes brothers" claims that Trudeau said this, yet many others have repeated it as fact. It is possibly a paraphrasing of Trudeau's February 2016 quote about elevating enemies. <br class="br">Misattributed
Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist
Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Water Book
“Your enemies can kill you, but only your friends can hurt you.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman
Nagarjuna (150–250) Indian philosopher
Nagarjuna & Sakya Pandita. (1977). Elegant sayings. Cazadero, California: Dharma Publishing.