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Source & translation
Where our quotations come from, and how we keep them accurate.
Who was Sun Tzu?
Sun Tzu (Sun Zi, 孙子) is the name attached to The Art of War, a Chinese military treatise traditionally dated to the late Spring and Autumn period (roughly the 5th century BCE). Very little about his life can be established with certainty, and scholars disagree about whether the text is a single author’s work or a compilation refined over generations. We present the text and its strategic ideas without making unsupported biographical claims.
What is The Art of War?
The Art of War (孙子兵法) is a short work of thirteen chapters on strategy, deception, positioning, and the efficient use of resources. It is one of the most studied works on strategy ever written, and its principles are applied far beyond the battlefield — in business, investing, negotiation, and leadership.
Which translation do we use?
We use the Lionel Giles translation (1910), the standard public-domain English translation. It is clear, widely available, and the basis for most modern popular versions of the text. Where a passage is a faithful paraphrase rather than a verbatim rendering, we flag it as a paraphrase.
Why do translations differ?
Classical Chinese is concise and context-dependent, so different translators make different choices — some more literal, some more interpretive. This is why a single passage can appear in several English forms across books and websites. We prefer the Giles wording for consistency, and we never attribute modern paraphrase back to Sun Tzu as a verbatim quotation.
Historical quotation vs. modern interpretation
Every lesson separates two things clearly: the quotation (Sun Tzu’s words, with chapter and translation) and the modern interpretation (our original commentary — the principle, the “what it means,” and the “use it today”). The interpretations are editorial content, not the words of Sun Tzu, and not financial, legal, or professional advice.