If you want to learn the craft of war, ponder over this book. The teacher is as a needle, the disciple is as thread. You must practice constantly.
Miyamoto MusashiRead
Unless you really understand others, you can hardly attain your own self-understanding.
Interpretation
Understanding others is essential for self-awareness.
Miyamoto Musashi's quote emphasizes the interconnection between self-understanding and the understanding of others. It suggests that in order to deeply comprehend ourselves, we must first delve into the perspectives, experiences, and emotions of those around us, as this broader understanding can illuminate our own identities and motivations.
In practice
In a discussion on empathy, this quote could illustrate the importance of listening to others.
If you want to learn the craft of war, ponder over this book. The teacher is as a needle, the disciple is as thread. You must practice constantly.
If you fail to take advantage of your enemies' collapse, they may recover.
One must make the warrior walk his everyday walk.
To cut and slash are two different things. Cutting, whatever form of cutting it is, is decisive, with a resolute spirit. Slashing is nothing more than touching the enemy.
You win battles by knowing the enemy's timing, and using a timing which the enemy does not expect.
In the void is virtue, and no evil. Wisdom has existence, principle has existence, the Way has existence, spirit is nothingness.
The river itself has no beginning or end. In its beginning, it is not yet the river; in the end it is no longer the river. What we call the headwaters is only a selection from among the innumerable sources which flow together to compose it. At what point in its course does the Mississippi become what the Mississippi means?
I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.
Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.
One of the reasons inequality gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That's the American ideal. Poor people don't like talking about poverty because even though they might live in the projects surrounded by other poor people and have, like, ten dollars in the bank, they don't like to think of themselves as poor.
I don't get my authority from this preexisting paradigm which is quite narrow and only serves a few people. I look elsewhere for alternatives that might be of service to humanity.
The scars and stains of racism are still deeply embedded in the American society.
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