Key Arguments

• Direct methods are used to join battle, but indirect methods are required to actually secure victory.
• Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are inexhaustible and recur like natural cycles (Heaven and Earth, rivers, sun and moon, the seasons).
• Though there are only two basic methods (direct and indirect), their combinations yield an endless series of maneuvers.
• The direct and indirect alternate without end, like moving in a circle.

Source Quotes

5. In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory. 6.

6. Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are inexhaustible as Heaven and Earth, unending as the flow of rivers and streams; like the sun and moon, they end but to begin anew; like the four seasons, they pass away to return once more. 7.

10. In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack—the direct and the indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers. 11.

11. The direct and the indirect lead on to each other in turn. It is like moving in a circle—you never come to an end. Who can exhaust the possibilities of their combination? 12.

Key Concepts

• In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory.
• Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are inexhaustible as Heaven and Earth, unending as the flow of rivers and streams; like the sun and moon, they end but to begin anew; like the four seasons, they pass away to return once more.
• In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack—the direct and the indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers.
• The direct and the indirect lead on to each other in turn. It is like moving in a circle—you never come to an end. Who can exhaust the possibilities of their combination?

Context

v. Energy (lines 273–321)