One of my new favorite apps on the iPhone is called Stanza.

It is an e-book reader with a cool networking feature like the Kindle where you can download e-books from an online catalog right to the phone. You can also share books from a Stanza client that you run on a Desktop machine. So I copied over some technical books that I have in .pdf format. The software does a really good job of formatting the text for the screen size.

One of the nice things about the online catalog is that it has a ton of free ebooks that are in the public domain including H.G. Wells, Jules Verne and Sun Tzu, who wrote The Art of War.

I have always heard quotes from The Art of War, but have never thought to sit down and read it. Last week I watched a History Channel show called Art of War that discussed Sun Tzu's tactics in regard to US military battles since the Civil War. It was pretty fascinating.

So I am playing with Stanza's download feature and I grab the e-book. I was surprised to learn that The Art of War was so short. I read it in less than an hour. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

To make yourself invulnerable to defeat lies in your own hands, but the enemy himself must provide you with the opportunity to defeat him.

Energy may be likened to the bending of a crossbow; decision, to the releasing of a trigger.

He who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them.

For some reason the quotes reminded me of the Haiku poem from Fight Club:

Worker bees can leave Even drones can fly away The queen is their slave

All-in-all the book is a nice and easy read. I recommend anyone take an hour to read it if they have not.

A number of lines from the book seem like common sense after watching a number of war movies, but considering Sun Tzu (if he was a real person) lived 2500 years ago, it is very easy to over look.