When you engage in actual fighting, if victory
is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and
their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town,
you will exhaust your strength.
Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources
of the State will not be equal to the strain.
Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped,
your strength exhausted and your treasure spent,
other chieftains will spring up to take advantage
of your extremity. Then no man, however wise,
will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.
Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war,
cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.
There is no instance of a country having benefited
from prolonged warfare.
It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted
with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand
the profitable way of carrying it on.
The skillful soldier does not raise a second levy,
neither are his supply-wagons loaded more than twice.
Poverty of the State exchequer causes an army
to be maintained by contributions from a distance.
Contributing to maintain an army at a distance causes
the people to be impoverished.
