What enables the enlightened rulers and good generals to conquer the enemy at every move and achieve extraordinary success is foreknowledge.

Now the reason the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men is foreknowledge.

Foreknowledge is power.

It is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for the purposes of spying, and thereby they achieve great results.

Foreknowledge cannot be gotten from ghosts and spirits, cannot be had by analogy, cannot be found out by calculation. It must be obtained from people, people who know the conditions of the enemy.

Foresight is a virtue and averts many a misfortune.

Both knowledge and wisdom extend man's reach. Knowledge led to computers, wisdom to chopsticks.

If you're powerful and wise, you seek to bring stability and order and predictability and peace. That's what a father does in his family. That's what a good CEO does in a company. It's what a good general does.

Fortune may raise up or abase the ordinary mortal, but the sage and the soldier should have minds beyond her control.

Now to what higher object, to what greater character, can any mortal aspire than to be possessed of all this knowledge, well digested and ready at command, to assist the feeble and friendless, to discountenance the haughty and lawless, to procure redress to wrongs, the advancement of rights, to assert and maintain liberty and virtue to discourage and abolish tyranny and vice.

Before you can master any of the other axioms of wisdom, you must first strive to be men and women of honor and integrity. That is what sets the great leaders above the commonplace. It will not be easy. It never is. But it is also not complicated.

A general is not easily overcome who can form a true judgment of his own and the enemy's forces. Valour is superior to numbers. The nature of the ground is often of more consequence than courage. (General Maxims)

He was a strong man in wise enough to realize that beyond power itself is the power of using it wisely.

They make their fortune who are stout and wise,
Wit rules the heavens, discretion guides the skies.