The 33 Strategies of War

When danger is greatest.--It is rare to break one's leg when in the course of life one is toiling upwards--it happens much more often when one starts to take things easy and to choose the easy paths.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, 1844-1900

Death is nothing, but to live defeated is to die every day.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 1769-1821

While knowing that we will die someday, we think that all the others will die before us and that we will be the last to go. Death seems a long way off. Is this not shallow thinking? It is worthless and is only a joke within a dream.... Insofar as death is always at one's door, one should make sufficient effort and act quickly.

Try to get as much done as possible in the shortest time.

When I look back at the past and think of all the time I squandered in error and idleness,...then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift...every minute could have been an eternity of happiness! If youth only knew! Now my life will change; now I will be reborn.

If I do not die, if I am not killed, my life will suddenly seem endless, a whole eternity, each minute a century. I will take account of everything that passes--I will not waste a second of life again

Learn to smoke out your enemies

You need clarity. Learn to smoke

Well, then, my boy, develop your strategy So that prizes in games won't elude your grasp. Strategy makes a better woodcutter than strength. Strategy keeps a pilot's ship on course When crosswinds blow it over the wine-blue sea. And strategy wins races for charioteers. One type of driver trusts his horses and car And swerves mindlessly this way and that, All over the course, without reining his horses. But a man who knows how to win with lesser horses Keeps his eye on the post and cuts the turn close, And from the start keeps tension on the reins With a firm hand as he watches the leader."

Our successes and failures in life can be traced to how well or how badly we deal with the inevitable conflicts that confront us in society. The common ways that people deal with them--trying to avoid all conflict, getting emotional and lashing out, turning sly and manipulative--are all counterproductive in the long run, because they are not under conscious and rational control and often make the situation worse.