Extract from the 13 articles

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Article 1: Evaluation

It is the domain of life and death: the preservation or loss of the empire depends on it; it is imperative to regulate it well. Not to give serious thought to what concerns it is to show a guilty indifference to the preservation or loss of what is most dear to us, and this is not to be found among us.

Five main things must be the object of our continuous meditation and of all our care, as do those great artists who, when they undertake some masterpiece, always have in mind the goal they propose, make the most of everything they see, everything they hear, neglect nothing to acquire new knowledge and all the help that can lead them happily to their end.

If we want glory and success to accompany our arms, we must never lose sight of: doctrine, time, space, command, discipline. Doctrine gives rise to unity of thought; it inspires us with the same way of living and dying, and makes us fearless and steadfast in misfortune and in death.

If we know time well, we will not be ignorant of these two great principles Yin and Yang by which all natural things are formed and by which the elements receive their different modifications; we will know the time of their union and of their mutual cooperation for the production of cold, heat, serenity or badness of the air.

Space is no less worthy of our attention than time; let us study it well, and we shall have knowledge of the high and the low, of the far and the near, of the wide and the narrow, of that which remains and that which only passes.

Pages 1 of The Art of War , Sun Tzu