Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Have you read SunTzu ?

Sun Tzu

From Wikiquote

If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles... if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.
If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles... if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

Sun Tzu 孫子; Sūn Zǐ; (c. 6th century BC) was a Chinese General, military strategist, and author of The Art of War, an immensely influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy; also known as Sun Wu (孫武; Sūn Wǔ), and Chang Qing (長卿; Cháng Qīng).

The Art of War

Quotations from translations of the book The Art of War (6th century BC)
  • 知彼知己,百戰不殆;不知彼而知己,一勝一負;不知彼,不知己,每戰必敗
    • It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled 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 imperiled in every single battle.

16 comments:

mudpies02 said...

Let's hope we know our enemies and ourselves then:D

MrWoody said...

who are the greatest military leaders of history and why?

mech boy said...

Genghis Khan of course! He led the Mongol empire and raised it to the largest empire in history! The Mongol empire cover 33.000,000 km squared! (12,741,000 sq miles) That's aprroximately 22% of Earth's total land. It's population was 100 million people. Too bad the Mongol Empire got fragmented into smaller pieces making them more vulnerable to an invasion.

IM A ROOM5IAN said...

hmmm... kind of confusing but also makes sense...

i quite like random stuff like this.

HamilTRON said...

I agree with you mechboy

gnome said...

thats true mechboy but alexander the great never lost a battle in 11 years against considerably larger armies and was the first military leader to try to conquer the known world

MrWoody said...

hah! i love it - thank you mech', '5ian, 'tron, and gnome :-)

Marshall said...

it is one of the most famous quotes from China. my dad really likes this book (have i said it's from a book yet?). this quote has lots of meaning to it. i will explain: (hope mr Woody lets me use cut&paste the quote) "It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles." example: if you are in a battle, it's important to know your weapons and men. why? because if you don't know how many guns, cannons, weak men and strong men you have, the battle is going to be muddled up and you have 50% chance of winning.it's just like a game of football which isn't split into defenders, mid-field and strikers. i will explain that later.
if you know yourself, why do you have to know about the opponent? this is very important, but it will work the best if you combine those two together. in a war, you will also need to know how strong your opponent is, how many weapons he is and how many men he got. it's the key to get victory (but it works for others as well, so don't get an idea from that). now with those information, you can prepare for everything you need, and so that's why people have spies.
back to the football thingy.
this could be a very good tip for our game on saturday. maybe?
"It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled 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 imperiled in every single battle."
first of all: you have to know about your team, which position you are in and everything. strengths, weaknesses, etc. that is your weapons against the opponent.
second of all: you need to understand your opponent's team. what weaknesses they have, which positions they are in, how good is their coach etc. yes, you can observe your opponent's team during the game. if you don't understand their team and how they play but you know your team very well, you will have 50% chance of winning- all depends on luck: they might be bad at football, you never know. but if you don't know your team nor their team very well, then of course you will lose the game. no plan to survive.

Nei-Nei Neina-Marie said...

Wow. Why do boys always to better at this stuff, while all I care about is the egyptians and the victorians and (my favourite) the stone-age.
Not Genghis Kan!


Although, did you know I conquored my sister (5-year-old) by telling her that the next time she mixed my play-doh (I am very childish inside) colours together, hers will be a brown blob. She was a bit humbled by that. Serves here right!!!
>:(

Nei-Nei Neina-Marie said...

Oh, and there is a chinese saying that goes "Stick to your goals despite a hundred set-backs."
I'll find the chinese for it when I'm allowed in my room (Kids are asleep. I don't think many room5ians would be able to live in my life-style.)

MrWoody said...

marvellous comments!
tell me all the topics you would like to study in mini-projects

mojo said...

The spartans they may not have conquered much but they were brilliant warriors and showed that numbers isn't always the best.

Roo said...

The Trojans are my pick.
They went round Europe conquering lots places.

**KERLI** said...

Wait, wait, wait, the literal translation of 孫子 is grandson and the other name has no meaning it means Sun Wu.

mudpies02 said...

I translated the Chinese quote through Google, and it came out with:

Zhibi friends, Baizhanbudai; He and friends do not know, the one-a negative; He do not know, not friends, each combat suicide

The translation doesn't completely make sense to me....

I finished my Kakepuku tonight! All 2614 words of it! Yay! Party time! :D

Anonymous said...

My favourite maritime 'WARLORD' is Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson who is probably the greatest English maritime leader of the Eighteenth century,up umong Sir Francis Drake, Admiral Sir John Hawkins and ofcourse the Infamous Captain Jack Sparrow.

To find more information on all these great leaders go to:

For Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Nelson

For Sir Francis Drake:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Drake

For Sir John Hawkins:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkins