The Art Of War

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."

- Sun Tzu 4.5
Some have been asking about our last section dealing with sex appeal and what is deemed
'social superiority', asking if we could could elaborate on that theme just a bit. People have
asked if we could provide a few examples of individuals who best exhibited the traits we'd
discussed. How did characters like Napoleon, who rose from nothing to become Emperor of
France, or his cabinet member Tallyrand achieve such things?
The very best method of elaboration though is to discuss three books we've picked out that
would be a great starting point for such study; they discuss all of the secrets such
'ordinary' men have employed to get whatever it is they most wanted, be it that amazing
job, that great salary, or that flawless woman (remember, Napoleon was able - through pure
tenacity and knowing when to 'be at the right place at the right time' - to also win
Josephine, who was not really taken with the 'Little Corporal' at first. That would change).
And, these books can all be found on the Net, making them free to you.
One of the very best is the oldest: a 2,500-year-old book on strategy and tactics called
"The Art of War," and written by a man named Sun Tzu (the title 'Tzu' is honorary; it
means 'master'). Is is the oldest known book on strategy ever written, and has been used by
most of the best generals throughout the ages; in fact, it served as the basis for
Napoleon's whole philosophy of life. To be honest, while this book may not be the best
known of the three we discuss, it's almost certainly the best of the lot.
Don't let the fact that it deals with basic military thought keep you from pulling it down, or
buying it somewhere if you'd rather have a good hardcopy; most of its musings can be easily
applied to any facet of a person's life. For instance, when Japanese businesses through the
70s and 80s wanted to discover how to take on the giant US industries and come out on top
again and again, they used Sun Tzu's book almost as their business bible. You can pull down a
pretty cool version, complete with commentary to explain the more obscure sayings of the
master, here.
For about the last 500 years, no person who has really been successful in politics or most
businesses has gone without the teachings Niccolo Machiavelli put forth in his book, The
Prince. It is the book on realpolitik. Not that his almost frightening honesty has always
made him popular; for a while, more genteel 'men of goodwill' identified the author of the
slender volume with Satan himself. His policies were used extensively by Tallyrand; it was
always well-read by many in the Nixon and Reagan administrations, and was said to be a
favorite of Nixon's; Clinton knew much of it by heart, and turned to it when he was having
his most damaging troubles at the beginning of his presidency. If you recall, he would later
go through a great scandal involving an intern and a stained dress, while simultaneously
becoming the most popular peacetime president in history. This is a good book. Get a free
electronic copy here.

Then there's the personal maxims of Napoleon; you can pull down a fine version here. To
give you a good idea of what you might be missing if you don't wish to check out the full
maxims, (or if you'd rather not leave this site ), we've added a fair number of his
statements below. It will give you a fine idea of his mind, and what you may wish to do to
become that unstoppable success, with women, with business - in whatever you try.
Great ambition is the passion of a great character. He who is endowed with it, may perform
either very great actions, or very bad ones; all depends upon the principles which direct him.
To extraordinary circumstances we must apply extraordinary remedies.
To have a right estimate of a man's character, we must see him in misfortune.
It is a truth that man is difficult to know, and that, if we may not deceive ourselves, we
must judge him by his actions of the moment, and for the moment only.
We must not obstinately contend against circumstances, but rather let us obey them. We
have many projects in life but little determination.
A man is not dependent upon his fellow creature, when he does not fear death.
The man who devotes himself to instruction must not marry until he has surmounted the
first degrees of his career.
We should always go before our enemies with confidence, otherwise our apparent uneasiness
inspires them with greater boldness.
Wealth has always been the first title to consideration.
There is no greater misfortune for a man than to be governed by his wife: in such case he is
neither himself nor his wife, he is a perfect nonentity.
Great men are those who can subdue both good luck and fortune.
He who fears being conquered is certain of defeat.
The love of glory resembles the bridge which Satan threw over chaos to pass from the
shades below to paradise; glory joins the past to the future from which it is separated by a
profound abyss.
The great man depends upon events and circumstances.
Better not to have been born than to live without glory.
When we fight, no matter who, it is a civil war we make.

Affairs of war, like the destiny of battles, hang upon a spider's thread.
Every hour of time lost, creates a chance of evil for the future.
All men are equal before God: wisdom, talents, and virtue are the only difference between
them.
A man, worthy of the name, hates no one.
Everything has a limit, even the human passions.
We are miserable beings! error and weakness should be our motto.
It is in times of difficulty that great men and great nations exhibit all the energy of their
character, and become objects of admiration to posterity.
We must laugh at man, to avoid crying for him.
Wherever flowers cannot be reared, there man cannot live.
Chance plays a considerable part in our various resolutions.
Man is ever the same.
The secret of a legislator should be to take advantage of the errors of those whom he
pretends to govern.
The praises of an enemy are suspicious - they cannot flatter a man of honour at least until
after the cessation of hostilities.
Should one - ought we to commit suicide? Yes, say they, when there is no hope; but who when and how can we be without hope in this miserable scene, where the natural or sudden
death of a single individual changes, in an instant, the whole aspect of affairs?
In our own times, as well as in history, we may find lessons but never models.
Death overtakes the coward, but never the brave until his hour has come.
Nothing that is noble and simple is futile; and that which is durable should alone be
employed in the construction of a monument destined for posterity.
Ambition and the enjoyment of high offices, do not constitute the happiness and
satisfaction of a great man; he seeks the good opinion of the world and the esteem of
posterity.
Nothing is more arrogant than the weakness which feels itself supported by power.

Greediness and love of place are the greatest checks upon the morality of the people.
We should learn to forgive, and not encourage that hostile attitude which wounds one's
neighbour as well as ourselves - we must acknowledge human weakness, and bend it to,
rather than combat it.
When a man is determined to hold a place under a great power, he is already sold to that
power.
We must plant for the future.
Chance is the providence of adventurers.
The fear of danger, the desire to escape it, disorganizes those weak minds, to whom
physical sensations are everything; in taking advantage of their terrors we obtain that
which we could not have gained from their probity.
Better live a King, than a Prince.
Reason, logic, but above all the result, should be the constant aim of all mankind.
He who is full of courage and self-possession before an enemy's batter in the midst of
bullets, trembles sometimes, and loses his head before a petticoat or a peruke.
There is a great difference between a remuneration awarded by the heads of a nation,-that
is, the most intelligent party,-and the real popularity which associates itself with the
reminiscences and traditions of the cross roads and public places.
True wisdom, in general, consists in energetic determination.
Sovereignty is not in the title, nor the throne in its drapery.
There is scarcely a subject, however insignificant, from which great talent may not derive
some resource.
Idleness and luxury are the indispensable bases of society.
Almost all sentiments are traditions; we receive them as precedents.
Statistics are the budget of things.
It is as necessary for the heart to feel as for the body to be fed.
Men soon get tired of shedding their blood for the advantage of a few individuals, who think
they amply reward the soldiers' perils with the treasures they amass.

Surprises, like conspiracies, should burst upon us as the thunder.

Deep tragedy is the school of great men.
A glutton will defend his dinner like a hero.
To live, is to suffer; and the honest man is always fighting to be master of his own mind.
If a government of overpowering strength be subject to obstacles, a feeble one must
suffer them to a greater extent. Each day it is compelled to violate positive laws, without
which it would be impossible to maintain its position.
The people must not be counted upon; they cry indifferently: "Long live the King!" and "Long
live the Conspirators!" a proper direction must be given to them, and proper instruments
employed to effect it.
Hereditary succession to the magistracy is absurd, as it tends to make it a property.
Orders and decorations are necessary in order to dazzle the people.
Power is founded upon opinion.
Sometimes a great example is necessary to all the public functionaries of the state.
Policy requires that a Sovereign should be consistent.
Men are led by trifles.
Everything in the life of man is subject to calculation; the good and evil must be equally
balanced.
Public esteem is the recompense of honest men.
There is no power without justice.
Better to have an open enemy, than hidden friends [. . .] or a forced ally.
We must either strike or be stricken.
The surest way to influence the determination of Princes is to wound their pride.
Supreme authority is indivisible.
Success depends upon unity of action.
Neither yield to, nor treat with agitators.

The allies we gain by victory, will turn against us upon the bare whisper of our defeat.
The heart may be lacerated and the mind remain unshaken.
Cruelty can only be justified by necessity.
I should have burnt Vienna!
The people never willingly rub themselves against naked bayonets.
The most trifling circumstances produce the greatest results.
Courage and virtue are the conservators of states. Cowardice and crime are their
destruction.
In war, as in love, we must come in contact, ere we triumph.
A king is sometimes obliged to commit crimes; but they are the crimes of his position.
To have his heart slave to his head is the real wisdom of a politician.
If political errors were crimes in the eyes of God, no Sovereign would meet with pardon.
The rabble are only worthy of contempt; necessity alone can justify an attach upon them.
At the head of his army nothing is more becoming than simplicity; in a great city or a palace
the chief of a government must attract attention by every means in his power, but it must
be done prudently.
The power of concentration and union are facts which must strike the commonest mind.
A restored dynasty never pardons its dethroners.
In order to take we must learn to give.
In diplomacy the letter kills the spirit.
Tact and good bearing are more successful than trickery. The wheels common to
diplomatists of old, are worn out, all their finesse is stale and unprofitable, and in truth,
when a man can speak openly, why should he practise deception?
Enemies likely to be dangerous, have too much sense to expose themselves to danger.
There are no small events for Nations, or Sovereigns; they are ever those which decide
their destiny.

Fortune is like a woman; if you miss her today, think not to find her tomorrow.
Great men seldom fail in their most perilous enterprises.
When you have an enemy in your power, deprive him of the means of ever injuring you.
The conscience is the inviolable asylum of the liberty of man.
In all this, the last sentence of Napoleon's may be the most important to remember.
Like all world-views, one aimed at the supreme elevation of the 'natural Master' can be
taken too far. Napoleon struggled with it; he at first handled the virtues and detriments of
such a view reasonably well, and was originally a great fighter for democracy who almost
single-handedly saved the new French Republic (the first democracy in the Old World) until
a wildly successful campaign in Italy made him feel "as if the world had swept out from
under my feet." He decided the Republic existed only to make him an Emperor, essentially a
dictator like Julius Caesar who ruled by the 'will of the people'. To be fair, he did actually
create the Napoleonic Code and establish it throughout Europe, which for the first time
recognized most people as having basic, inalienable rights; just as long as those rights didn't
infringe on the rights of the people's natural emperor.
Throughout the rest of the 19th Century, Napoleon's 'will to power' became the aspiration
of the 'great man'; Nietzsche drove the idea even farther and immortalized it with his idea
of the 'Superman', who he was sure would refuse to be confined by the "ridiculous morals
of the mob," and would do whatever he had to do to see his will achieved. If this isn't
clearly perversion enough of Napoleon's original ethic, a middle-aged Austrian would take
this 'Superman' idea and pervert it even further in the 20th Century when he would use it
as the philosophical basis for a thing he called the Third Reich.
It can be taken too far. One can see here and there that Nietzsche, while not totally
innocent of the influence he had on Hitler, tended to love speaking in hyperbole and
extremes often calculated to shock, and would himself have been shocked by Hitler's taking
so much rhetorical overstatement meant only to generate freedom of thought as absolute
fact. And no doubt Napoleon - who, whatever his faults, never appeared to hold a grudge
against any group of people unless they also held one against him - wouldn't have been able
to say anything at all.
In ancient Rome, the only real way a man could hope for real and substantial advancement
was to enlist in the army. There even the lowest could attain a generalship, and veterans,
regardless of where they were from, were automatically made Roman citizens for their
services to the state. A number became senators, and some later even became emperors.

A general who had achieved a great victory was usually given a great parade, or triumph,
through the city. The captive armies and peoples were paraded before the Roman crowd in
chains, often to be sold as slaves. The generals and rulers of that nation were paraded next,
and last of all was the victorious general, riding in a small chariot as he took in the adoration
of the crowd. Only the astronauts who flew during the 'Space Race' between the US and
the USSR have any idea what that kind of parade is really like.
A garland - a kind of crown usually made out of leaves, vines, and flowers - was given to the
general to wear as celebration for his victory. A servant was with him during the triumph,
holding the garland for the general, who reveled in his greatest moment of power and social
influence. The servant would stay just behind the general and whisper into his ear at the
very same moment the screams of the crowds rushed over him, "Remember, thou art mortal;
remember, thou art mortal," again and again.
The Romans knew that absolute power can, if not handled correctly, have the power to
corrupt absolutely. As long as you remember that you really are just mortal too, there's no
reason you can't use the knowledge of Napoleon or Sun Tzu to your incredible advantage, in
whatever you try. As long as you keep that balance, you'll be very glad you used them.