Quotes | Philosophy

If fighting is sure to result in victory, than you must fight, even though the ruler forbid it; if fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler’s bidding.

Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.

Do not press an enemy at bay.

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.

To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.

Know yourself and you will win all battles.

Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems.

Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.

Keep your friends close, your enemies even closer.

The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.

If your opponent is of choleric temper, irritate him.

Quickness is the essence of the war.

Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.

The peak efficiency of knowledge and strategy is to make conflict unnecessary.

Sometimes we need to loss the small battles in order to win the war.

You need the right people with you, not the best people.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

Some are born mad, some achieve madness, and some have madness thrust upon ’em.

All’s well that ends well.

What’s done can’t be undone.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

There is no darkness but ignorance.

Conscience doth make cowards of us all.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

Can you really explain to a fish what it’s like to walk on land? One day on land is worth a thousand years of talking about it, and one day running a business has exactly the same kind of value.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

Fantasy and reality often overlap.

When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.

That’s the real trouble with the world. Too many people grow up.

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

If money help a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.

That man has reached immortality who is disturbed by nothing material.

External nature is only internal nature writ large.

If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the Solution.

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

We are all different, but we share the same human spirit. Perhaps it’s human nature that we adapt and survive.

The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.

Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.

When people show you who they are … believe them!

You can have it all. Just not all at once.

One of the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.

Fools multiply when wise men are silent.

It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.