This is the real thing, and it is unusually traceable: the sentence is verse 18 of Chapter III, “Attack by Stratagem,” in The Art of War ↗. The wording everyone quotes is specifically Lionel Giles’ 1910 translation — other translators render the same Chinese quite differently — and in the text itself it is introduced as an existing proverb: “Hence the saying.”
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles” Sun Tzu, The Art of War, chapter III ("Attack by Stratagem"), verse 18, in Lionel Giles's 1910 translation. Verified: quotle.info Verbatim: “Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Can you use it?
✓ Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.
Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool
In context
Evoking the world of Sun Tzu — Chinese general, strategist and philosopher · historicity uncertain. Theme: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles". 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 "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles". 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
The source
Work
Sun Tzu on the Art of War
Location
Chapter III, “Attack by Stratagem,” verse 18
Translation
Lionel Giles (1875–1958); London: Luzac and Company, 1910
Original text
Chinese; generally dated to roughly 500–430 BC
Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Chapter III, verse 18
The Chinese that Giles is rendering here is “知彼知己，百戰不殆；不知彼而知己，一勝一負；不知彼，不知己，每戰必敗” — printed alongside this English at the Chinese Text Project ↗. Note that the famous line is only the first of three clauses; the two that follow are almost always dropped.
The exact wording is verse 18 of Chapter III, “Attack by Stratagem,” in the Giles translation, where it is prefaced “Hence the saying” — Wikisource ↗. The identical sentence appears in Standard Ebooks ↗ and the MIT Internet Classics Archive ↗, which also numbers it 18.
The Chinese Text Project ↗ sets the Chinese original beside this same Giles English, which is what lets you see that the memorable phrasing is the translator’s choice rather than a literal equivalence.
Wikiquote’s sourced entry places the passage in Chapter III as well, but prints a different English rendering — “you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles” — a useful demonstration that the familiar wording is edition-specific: Wikiquote ↗.
Project Gutenberg’s record for the Giles text gives its original publication as 1910 and its status as public domain in the USA — Project Gutenberg ebook 132 ↗. Wikipedia’s account of the book adds that this was the first annotated English translation, published by Luzac and Company in London: The Art of War ↗.
✓Public domain
The underlying Chinese text is ancient and long out of copyright, and the specific English wording quoted here comes from Lionel Giles’ translation, first published in 1910 — well before the 1931 US threshold — so this translation is itself in the public domain. Project Gutenberg ↗ lists the work’s original publication as 1910 and states its status as public domain in the USA. Later twentieth-century translations of the same passage are a separate matter and may still be in copyright.
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
What people get wrong
The attribution here is sound, which makes this line an outlier: Sun Tzu’s name is one of the internet’s busiest magnets for invented aphorisms. Three things still routinely go wrong around this quote.
✕
The wordingLionel Giles, for the English translation
Sun Tzu wrote no English. The sentence people memorise is Giles’ 1910 phrasing; other translators produce noticeably different lines from the same characters — Wikiquote’s own entry for the passage reads “you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles,” and lists a literal rendering closer to “know other, know self, hundred battles without danger” (Wikiquote ↗). Quoting the Giles line without naming Giles is the most common error.
✕
The neighbours“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” fabricated
Constantly filed next to the genuine line as though it were the same author. Wikiquote’s Misattributed section for Sun Tzu traces it instead to The Godfather Part II (1974) — Wikiquote ↗.
✕
The neighbours“To know your enemy, you must become your enemy” unsourced
This one borrows the genuine passage’s logic, which is exactly why it spreads. Wikiquote lists it as misattributed, noting it lacks sourcing in published translations of The Art of War — along with “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory,” which is absent from print translations (Wikiquote ↗).
✕
The authorA single historical “Sun Tzu” authorship
Even for a genuine passage, the byline is softer than it looks. Wikipedia records that Sun Tzu’s “historical existence is uncertain,” that anachronisms in the text point away from his traditional lifetime, and that the earlier Art of War is now generally thought to have been completed between 500 and 430 BC — later than the dates traditionally given for him (Wikipedia ↗).
✓Verdict: real. It is Chapter III, verse 18 of The Art of War, and the English everybody quotes is Lionel Giles’ 1910 translation ↗. Credit the translator alongside the author and you are on firm ground.
Context
Why it mattered
The line is usually deployed as advice about opponents, but read whole it is mostly about the harder half of the pair. Sun Tzu’s three clauses form a descending scale: know both and a hundred battles hold no terror; know only yourself and you will trade a defeat for every victory; know neither and you lose every time. The second clause is the interesting one, because it assumes self-knowledge is the part a commander is likelier to have — and says it is still not enough.
There is also a small textual detail that survives translation. Giles renders the passage as beginning “Hence the saying,” which frames the famous words as a maxim the treatise is citing rather than coining. The most-quoted sentence in the most-quoted work of military strategy is presented, by its own author, as something already in circulation.
Know both and a hundred battles hold no terror. Know only yourself, and every victory costs you a defeat.
Read the full story
The Art of War reached Europe long before it reached English readers: Wikipedia notes that the first translation into a European language was the French version produced by the Jesuit priest Jean Joseph Marie Amiot in 1772. The first annotated English translation was Giles’, published by Luzac and Company in London in 1910 — which is why his phrasing, rather than anyone else’s, became the wording that circulates.
One reason the corpus is confusing: Wikipedia records that the 1972 discovery of the Yinqueshan Han slips revealed two separate texts attributed to different Sun authors, which had long been conflated. Attributions to “Sun Tzu” therefore inherit real ambiguity even before the modern fabrications start.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Traditionally 544–496 BC · Chinese general, strategist and philosopher · historicity uncertain
Sun Tzu is revered across Chinese and East Asian culture as the archetypal military strategist, traditionally placed in the Spring and Autumn period with life dates of 544–496 BC. Wikipedia is blunt that his historical existence is uncertain: anachronisms in The Art of War — terminology, technology, philosophical ideas — point to a text later than his supposed lifetime, and the earlier version of the work is now generally thought to have been completed between 500 and 430 BC. What is not in doubt is the treatise’s reach: thirteen terse chapters on deception, terrain, timing and intelligence that moved from Chinese military canon into European letters via a 1772 French translation, and into English with Lionel Giles’ annotated 1910 edition.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu on the Art of War: The Oldest Military Treatise in the World. Translated by Lionel Giles. London: Luzac and Company, 1910. Chapter III, “Attack by Stratagem,” verse 18.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles’?” Last verified 29 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/if-you-know-the-enemy-and-know-yourself-you-need-not-fear/