Reader > Reader's Quotes

“I want to lead an important life. I want to do it because I was born a human being.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi

“I wouldn't call Musashi ordinary.
But he is. That's what's extraordinary about him. He's not content with relying on whatever natural gifts he may have. Knowing he's ordinary, he's always trying to improve himself. No one appreciates the agonizing effort he's had to make. Now that his year's of training have yielded such spectacular results, everybody's talking about his 'god-given talent.' That's how men who don't try very hard comfort themselves.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi

“Think what you like. There are people who die by remaining alive and others who gain life by dying.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“Fighting isn't all there is to the Art of War. The men who think that way, and are satisfied to have food to eat and a place to sleep, are mere vagabonds. A serious student is much more concerned with training his mind and disciplining his spirit than with developing martial skills.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi

“Musashi wondered how many people there were who on this night could say: “I was right. I did what I should have done. I have no regrets.” For him, each resounding knell evoked a tremor of remorse. He could conjure up nothing but the things he had done wrong during the last year. Nor was it only the last year—the year before, and the year before that, all the years that had gone by had brought regrets. There had not been a single year devoid of them. Indeed, there had hardly been one day.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“I have drunken deep of joy,
And I will taste no other wine tonight.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley

“To him, any place could serve as home—more than that: wherever he happened to be was the universe.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“True courage knows fear. It knows how to fear that which should be feared. Honest people value life passionately, they hang on to it like a precious jewel. And they pick the right time and place to surrender it, to die with dignity.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“Whether people were great or not, there was not much variety in their inner life experience. Any difference lay merely in how they dealt with common human weaknesses.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“Instead of wanting to be like this or that, make yourself into a silent, immovable giant. That’s what the mountain is. Don’t waste your time trying to impress people. If you become the sort of man people can respect, they’ll respect you, without your doing anything.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“If the young cannot harbor great dreams in their souls, who can?”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“It wasn't that he had forgotten the lesson Takuan had taught him: the truly brave man is one who loves life, cherishing it as a treasure that once forfeited can never be recovered. He well knew that to live was more than merely to survive. The problem was how to imbue his life with meaning, how to ensure that his life would cast a bright ray of light into the future, even if it became necessary to give up that life for a cause. If he succeeded in doing this, the length of his life--twenty years or seventy--made little difference. A lifetime was only an insignificant interval in the endless flow of time.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi

“Fighting isn’t all there is to the Art of War. The men who think that way, and are satisfied to have food to eat and a place to sleep, are mere vagabonds. A serious student is much more concerned with training his mind and disciplining his spirit than with developing martial skills. He has to learn about all sorts of things—geography, irrigation, the people’s feelings, their manners and customs, their relationship with the lord of their territory. He wants to know what goes on inside the castle, not just what goes on outside it. He wants, essentially, to go everywhere he can and learn everything he can.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
― Oscar Wilde