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Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive.

Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive.

Approximate author period: c. 544 BC · ancient

Meaning not yet available

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Sun Tzu
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 544 BC · ancient
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year -544; activity date not established; Wikidata Q37151, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37151 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 192400; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.