Quotes on Samurai

To practice Zen or the Martial Arts, you must live intensely, wholeheartedly, without reserve - as if you might die in the next instant

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.

Samurai films, like westerns, need not be familiar genre stories. They can expand to contain stories of ethical challenges and human tragedy.

I dislike death, however, there are some things I dislike more than death. Therefore, there are times when I will not avoid danger.

a samurai is a total human being, whereas a man who is completely absorbed in his technical skill has degenerated into a ‘function’, one cog in a machine.

If you are far from the enemy, make him believe you are near.

…the samurai ethic is a political science of the heart, designed to control such discouragement and fatigue in order to avoid showing them to others. It was thought more important to look healthy than to be healthy, and more important to seem bold and daring than to be so. This view of morality, since it is physiologically based on the special vanity peculiar to men, is perhaps the supreme male view of morality.

We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.

My mentality is like a Samurai: They used to every day work on their technique to make themselves almost perfect. Because perfection is impossible, but every day, you get closer to perfection.

Engage in combat fully determined to die and you will be alive; wish to survive in the battle and you will surely meet death.

When one has made a decision to kill a person, even if it will be very difficult to succeed by advancing straight ahead, it will not do to think about going at it in a long roundabout way. One's heart may slacken, he may miss his chance, and by and large there will be no success. The Way of the Samurai is one of immediacy, and it is best to dash in headlong.

Before the war, my parents were very proud people. They'd always talk about Japan and also about the samurai and things like that. Right after Pearl Harbor, they were just real quiet. They kept to themselves; they were afraid to talk about what could happen. I assume they knew that nothing good would come out of it.

Every country in the world loved the folklore of the West--the music, the dress, the excitement, everything that was associated with the opening of a new territory. It took everybody out of their own little world. The cowboy lasted a hundred years, created more songs and prose and poetry than any other folk figure. The closest thing was the Japanese samurai. Now, I wonder who'll continue it.

The Samurai is the first to suffer anxiety for human society, and he is the last to seek personal pleasure.

The way of the Samurai is found in death.

I'm not a fighter, but in my mind I'm fighting every day. 'What's new? What am I doing?' I'm fighting myself. My soul is samurai. My roots aren't samurai, but my soul is.

Master the divine techniques of the Art of Peace and no enemy will dare to challenge you.

He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.

Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.

The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.

All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.