The Principles of Sun Tzu
The Art of War in Business

THE PRINCIPLES OF SUN TZU

The Art of War is a short Chinese book on strategy, traditionally credited to a general called Sun Tzu (“Master Sun”). It is divided into 13 chapters, and some of its admirers apply it to business, politics and sport.

This page groups its ideas into seven principles. The grouping is ours, not a list from the book, and so is every “in business” reading below. The quotations are from Lionel Giles’s English translation of 1910, the first annotated English translation, which is free to read on Project Gutenberg. Each one carries its chapter and verse, so you can find it in a couple of minutes.

Know Your Enemy and Yourself

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War III.18 (Giles)

The verse goes on: “If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” The Chinese says a hundred battles too (百戰不殆), so the popular “thousand battles” version is not what the text says.

Our reading, for a business: know your own costs, strengths and limits as well as you know your competitors’. The verse gives the two halves equal weight.

Understand the Terrain

“The natural formation of the country is the soldier’s best ally; but a power of estimating the adversary, of controlling the forces of victory, and of shrewdly calculating difficulties, dangers and distances, constitutes the test of a great general.” — X.21 (Giles)

Chapter X opens with six kinds of terrain, and chapter XI lists nine varieties of ground. As we read this verse, ground helps, but judgement decides.

Our reading: in business the “terrain” is the market you are standing in, meaning its size, its customers, its rules and who else is in it. Study it before you commit money or time to it.

Focus on Your Strengths

“The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.” — IV.1 (Giles)

The next verse, IV.2, adds: “To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”

Our reading: secure the part you control first, such as a product that works, costs you can carry and customers you already serve well. Then watch for the opening a competitor gives you.

The line “Opportunities multiply as they are seized” is often credited to Sun Tzu. It is not in Giles’s translation: we searched the full text and it does not appear.

Exploit Your Competitors’ Weaknesses

“Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.” — VI.29 (Giles)

“So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.” — VI.30 (Giles)

Our reading: look for the need a competitor serves badly, rather than attacking the thing they do best.

Adapt Your Strategy to the Situation

“Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.” — VI.32 (Giles)

Earlier, in the first chapter, the book says: “According as circumstances are favourable, one should modify one’s plans.” (I.17). Chapter VIII, “Variation of Tactics”, is about the same idea. Giles notes that its heading means literally “The Nine Variations”.

Our reading: have a plan, and expect to change it.

The line “The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher” is sometimes credited to Sun Tzu. It is not in Giles’s translation. The book does use water to describe tactics, in VI.29 to VI.32, but not in these words.

Deception and Surprise

“All warfare is based on deception.” — I.18 (Giles)

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” — VII.19 (Giles)

Our reading: the useful business version is surprise, not deception. Keep plans private until they are ready, and move quickly once you commit. We would not read this as permission to mislead customers or partners, who are not the enemy in this picture.

Build Alliances

“We cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our neighbours.” — VII.12 (Giles)

The book is choosy about allies. In chapter XI it says of a warlike prince who attacks a powerful state: “Hence he does not strive to ally himself with all and sundry, nor does he foster the power of other states.” (XI.55).

Chapter III also ranks the ways of winning. The best is to win without a battle at all:

“Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” — III.2 (Giles)

The popular “the greatest victory is that which requires no battle” is a paraphrase of this verse, not a translation of it.

Our reading: partners are worth having when you know what they want. A deal that settles a contest can be worth more than winning it.

What the book contains

The Art of War is short: 13 chapters, each a run of numbered sayings. The titles below are Giles’s, with one verse from each chapter to show what it is about.

1. Laying Plans: the general who wins “makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought” (I.26).
2. Waging War: “There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.” (II.6)
3. Attack by Stratagem: winning without fighting (III.2), and knowing the enemy and yourself (III.18).
4. Tactical Dispositions: first make yourself impossible to defeat, then wait for the opening (IV.1).
5. Energy: “Energy may be likened to the bending of a crossbow; decision, to the releasing of the trigger.” (V.15)
6. Weak Points and Strong: avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak (VI.30).
7. Manœuvering: tactical manœuvering, “than which there is nothing more difficult” (VII.3).
8. Variation of Tactics: the general who understands varying his tactics “knows how to handle his troops” (VIII.4). Its heading means literally “The Nine Variations”.
9. The Army on the March: encamping the army and “observing signs of the enemy” (IX.1).
10. Terrain: “six kinds of terrain” (X.1).
11. The Nine Situations: “nine varieties of ground”, from dispersive ground to desperate ground (XI.1).
12. The Attack by Fire: “five ways of attacking with fire” (XII.1), and a warning that “no general should fight a battle simply out of pique” (XII.18).
13. The Use of Spies: the foreknowledge a general needs “cannot be elicited from spirits” (XIII.5), and “Knowledge of the enemy’s dispositions can only be obtained from other men.” (XIII.6)

The two “nine” titles are easy to mix up. In Giles’s translation, “The Nine Variations” is the literal meaning of chapter VIII’s heading; chapter XI is “The Nine Situations”.

A note on the author. Sima Qian’s history, the Shiji, records a tradition that the book was written by one Sun Wu of the state of Qi, and read by King Helü of Wu, who reigned about 514 to 495 BC. From about the 12th century, Chinese scholars began to question whether Sun Tzu existed at all, mainly because an older history, the Zuo zhuan, never mentions him. When the book was written is still discussed. Wikipedia’s article says it is “now generally accepted” that the earlier text was “completed sometime between 500 and 430 BCE”; elsewhere the same article says the earliest parts “probably date to at least 100 years later” than the 6th century when Sun Tzu is said to have lived, and in the early 20th century Liang Qichao argued that the book was written in the 4th century BC, by Sun Bin. Giles himself argued that the book was already in existence towards the end of the 5th century BC.

In 1972, bamboo slips found in two Han dynasty tombs at Yinqueshan, in Shandong, included a text attributed to Sun Tzu, corresponding to the received text, and a separate text attributed to Sun Bin. Wikipedia’s article says this showed that much of the confusion came from there being two texts, not one. The tombs had been sealed between about 134 and 118 BC (Wikipedia’s page on the slips gives about 140 or 134 BC as the earlier date). None of this makes the book less useful; it does mean “Sun Tzu said” is a looser claim than it sounds.

THE ART OF WAR IN BUSINESS

A few ways to use the book without over-reading it:

• Check the verse before you quote it. Giles’s translation is free online and numbered by chapter and verse. If a “Sun Tzu” line has no chapter and verse, search the text for it first.
• Start with yourself. IV.1 and IV.2 put your own position first: what you control, what you can afford, what you do well.
• Read the market as ground. Chapters X and XI are about reading the ground before moving; the business version is learning a market before committing to it.
• Treat “deception” as timing. Keeping plans quiet until they are ready is fair; misleading the people you serve is a different thing.
• Remember it is a book about war. Much of it, from spies to attacking with fire, has no business equivalent in our reading, and that is fine.

Sources

• Sun Tzu, The Art of War, translated by Lionel Giles (London: Luzac, 1910), Project Gutenberg eBook #132 (all quotations and verse numbers).
• 孫子兵法 (the Chinese text), Wikisource (chapter 3, 知彼知己，百戰不殆).
• Wikipedia, “The Art of War” (the Shiji tradition, authorship and dating, the Yinqueshan slips, Giles’s 1910 translation).
• Wikipedia, “Yinqueshan Han Slips” (the 1972 discovery).

Checked September 2026. Every quotation is from Giles’s 1910 translation on Project Gutenberg, with its chapter and verse; the Chinese wording is from Wikisource; the history of the text follows Wikipedia’s articles on The Art of War and the Yinqueshan slips, which give more than one view of when the book was written.