“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

— Sun Tzu

Probably apocryphal. This quotation does not appear in any print translation of Sun Tzu. The first citation in Google Books is from 2002; no citation in Google Books occurs in a translation of Sun Tzu.
Misattributed

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update July 24, 2025. History

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Sun Tzu68

ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosophe… -543–-495 BC

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“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

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