Accountant – CPA

I enjoy reading about history, primarily because it has a way of repeating itself. I ran across these quotes by Sun Tzu in “The Art of War” 600bc which I feel apply perfectly to business in 2011ac.

• To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy
• Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
• Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across
• Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
• Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.
• He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious.
• Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
• Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy’s unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions.
• To a surrounded enemy, you must leave a way of escape.
• A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective.
• Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization.
• For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
• It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperilled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperilled in every single battle.
• One defends when his strength is inadaquate, he attacks when it is abundant
• Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.
• There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare. 
• A skilled commander seeks victory from the situation and does not demand it of his subordinates.