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Who really said it

Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across

Not Sun Tzu’s words — a modern paraphrase Unknown No documented author · a modern English rendering
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

The thought is genuinely Sun Tzu’s. The sentence is not. Search Lionel Giles’s 1910 translation end to end and the phrase ‘golden bridge’ does not occur once; the word ‘bridge’ turns up only in passages about burning them. What Sun Tzu actually wrote, at chapter VII verse 36, is ‘When you surround an army, leave an outlet free’ — and Giles’s note explains why. Wikiquote files the golden-bridge wording under Disputed, and nobody has produced an author or a first appearance for it.

Last verified 29 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across” Not Sun Tzu's words. An unsourced modern paraphrase of The Art of War VII.36, 'When you surround an army, leave an outlet free' (trans. Lionel Giles, 1910). Traced by Quotle.info.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Sun Tzu. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the themes of wisdom, power and leadership. Theme: "Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

What The Art of War actually says

Source for the wording quoted here
None located — not in the text
The nearest genuine line
The Art of War, ch. VII (Manœuvering), v. 36
English quoted here
Lionel Giles, 1910 — public domain
Wikiquote files it under
Disputed

When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. […] Do not press a desperate foe too hard. Sun Tzŭ, The Art of War VII.36, trans. Lionel Giles (1910)

Giles prints these two sentences as one verse, separated by his own commentary — which is where the misunderstood half of the idea lives. On the first sentence Giles quotes the Tang commentator Tu Mu: the object is ‘to make him believe that there is a road to safety, and thus prevent his fighting with the courage of despair.’ Then Tu Mu, in Giles’s words, ‘adds pleasantly: After that, you may crush him.’ The genuine advice is not mercy. It is that a cornered enemy fights harder, so you should let him think he can leave.

The Art of War, trans. Giles — full text at Project Gutenberg

How we traced it

  • We went to the text first, because that is the only thing that settles it. Giles’s 1910 translation is the standard public-domain English Art of War and it is fully searchable. Searched end to end, it contains no occurrence of ‘golden bridge’; ‘bridge’ appears only in unrelated passages, one of them about burning them the full Giles text ↗
  • What is there, at chapter VII verse 36, is ‘When you surround an army, leave an outlet free’, followed by ‘Do not press a desperate foe too hard’ — with Giles’s note quoting Tu Mu on making the enemy ‘believe that there is a road to safety’. That is the passage the golden-bridge line paraphrases chapter VII, verse 36 ↗
  • Wikiquote reaches the same conclusion independently and files the sentence under Disputed, calling it a variant of Sun Tzu’s assertion to ‘leave a way of escape’ and noting Tu Mu’s commentary. It also records that the line ‘has recently appeared on the internet attributed to Scipio Africanus, but without citation’ Wikiquote, Sun Tzu — Disputed ↗
  • We checked that rival credit too. Wikiquote’s own page for Scipio Africanus carries no golden-bridge entry at all — not in its quotes, not in its Disputed section. So the Scipio attribution is uncited on the page best placed to cite it Wikiquote, Scipio Africanus ↗

No author and no first appearance have been located for the golden-bridge wording, so no rights status can honestly be asserted for it — and that uncertainty is itself a reason to quote it as unsourced rather than pin it on Sun Tzu. The genuine material this page quotes is free to reuse: Lionel Giles’s translation was published in 1910 and is public domain in the United States, which is why it is the version quoted here. Modern translations of The Art of War are in copyright. This is not legal advice.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

This is not a fabrication in the ordinary sense — the strategic idea behind it really is in The Art of War. What is invented is the sentence, and once a sentence is in quotation marks it is making a claim about a text.

Not Sun Tzu’s words not in the text

Searched end to end, Giles’s translation contains no ‘golden bridge’ and no gold in this connection at all. Nobody quoting the line offers a chapter or a verse, which is the standard signature of a wording invented downstream of the text search the text yourself ↗

No primary source, and not even a secondary one no source

Wikiquote records that the line has recently circulated attributed to Scipio Africanus ‘but without citation’. Wikiquote’s own Scipio page carries no such entry, so there is nothing behind it the Scipio page ↗

The Art of War VII.36 the real line

‘When you surround an army, leave an outlet free … Do not press a desperate foe too hard.’ Giles’s note quotes Tu Mu on the purpose: make him ‘believe that there is a road to safety, and thus prevent his fighting with the courage of despair’ chapter VII, verse 36 ↗

The strategy is Sun Tzu’s and the sentence is not. Cite VII.36 — ‘When you surround an army, leave an outlet free’ — and you are quoting something that exists the Giles translation ↗

Context

Why the paraphrase spread

The golden-bridge image is better copy than the original. ‘Leave an outlet free’ is a flat tactical instruction; ‘build your opponent a golden bridge’ is a picture, and it flatters the reader into hearing generosity in it. That is very likely why it travelled, and it is also why it misleads.

Because Sun Tzu’s point is not generosity. Read Giles’s note and the reasoning is cold: a surrounded enemy who believes he is trapped will fight with the courage of despair, so you give him somewhere to run — and then, as Tu Mu says, you may crush him. The paraphrase keeps the tactic and loses the motive.

The golden bridge is not mercy. It is a way of not having to fight a desperate man.

How to check a Sun Tzu quotation in one move

Ask which chapter and verse. The Art of War is thirteen short numbered chapters — a genuine line can always be pointed at.

Search the Giles translation. It is public domain, complete, and freely searchable at Project Gutenberg.

Distrust vivid imagery. The real text is spare and administrative; ornamental metaphor in an English ‘Sun Tzu’ quotation is usually a translator’s flourish or an invention.

Beware the commentators. Much of what circulates as Sun Tzu is really Tu Mu, Ts’ao Ts’ao or Chang Yu, whose notes Giles prints alongside the text.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Wisdom Power Leadership

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Sun Tzu — Disputed quotationsen.wikiquote.org

Files this line under Disputed and explains it as a variant of ‘leave a way of escape’.
The Art of War, trans. Lionel Giles (1910)gutenberg.org

The full public-domain text. Search it for ‘golden bridge’ and you get nothing; VII.36 is the real line.
Scipio Africanus — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

The rival credit’s home page, which carries no such quotation. A useful negative check.
Sun Tzuen.wikipedia.org

On the man, the text, and why both are less certain than the quotation industry suggests.

Credited, but not the source

Why it gets pinned on Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu

Traditionally 544–496 BC · Chinese general and strategist · historicity uncertain

Sun Tzu is the traditional author of The Art of War, dated by the Han historian Sima Qian to 544–496 BC and said to have served King Helü of Wu. His historical existence is uncertain: scholars from the 12th century onward have noted that the Zuo Zhuan, a detailed chronicle of exactly that period, does not mention him at all, and the earliest parts of the text probably postdate him by a century or more. He is a magnet for invented aphorisms for the usual reason — the real text is genuinely full of short, quotable strategic maxims, so a fabricated one blends in. The test never changes: which chapter, which verse?

For writers & researchers

Cite this

No source located; cf. The Art of War VII.36

No source located for the wording quoted here. Compare the genuine passage: Sun Tzŭ, The Art of War, ch. VII, v. 36, translated by Lionel Giles (London, 1910): ‘When you surround an army, leave an outlet free … Do not press a desperate foe too hard.’

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across’?” Last verified 29 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/build-your-opponent-a-golden-bridge-to-retreat-across/

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