The Japanese Art of War Quotes

“Be aware of yourself and know yourself. No matter how much you have learned and how much you know, if you don’t know yourself you don’t know anything. Indeed, if you don’t know yourself you cannot know anything else. People who don’t know themselves criticize others from the point of view of their own ignorant selves. They consider whatever agrees with them to be good, and hate whatever doesn’t go their way. They become irritated about everything, causing themselves to suffer by themselves, bothering themselves solely because of their own prejudices. If you know that not everyone will be agreeable to you, know that you won’t be agreeable to everyone either. Those who have no prejudices in themselves do not reject people, and therefore people do not reject them.”
― Thomas Cleary, The Japanese Art of War: Understanding the Culture of Strategy

“Those who have no real virtue within but outwardly rely on flowery cleverness are like leaky boats brightly painted—if you put manikins in them and set them on dry ground they look all right, but once they go into the rivers and lakes, into the wind and waves, are they not in danger?”
― Shambhala Publications, The Japanese Art of War: Understanding the Culture of Strategy

“You need to realize that when you practice from the state of the beginner all the way to the stage of immutable wisdom, then you must go back to the status of the beginner again. Let me explain in terms of your martial arts. As a beginner you know nothing of stance or sword position, so you have nothing in yourself to dwell on mentally. If someone strikes at you, you just fight, without thinking of anything. Then when you learn various things like stance, how to wield a sword, where to place the attention, and so on, your mind lingers on various points, so you find yourself all tangled up when you try to strike. But if you practice day after day and month after month, eventually stance and swordplay don’t hang on your mind anymore, and you are like a beginner who knows nothing. This is the sense in which it is said that the beginning and the end are the same, just as one and ten become neighbors when you have counted from one to ten. It is also like the highest and lowest notes of a musical scale becoming neighbors below and above a cycle of the scale. Just as the highest and lowest notes resemble each other, since buddhas are the highest human development they appear to be like people who know nothing of Buddha or Buddhism, having none of the external trappings that people envision of buddhas. Therefore the afflictions of unaware lingering in the beginning and the immutable wisdom in the end become one. The cogitating side of your brain will vanish, and you will come to rest in a state where there is no concern. Completely ignorant people don’t show their wits, it seems, because they haven’t got any. Highly developed intelligence doesn’t show because it has already gone into hiding. It is because of pseudo-erudition that intelligence goes to one’s head, a ludicrous sight.”
― Shambhala Publications, The Japanese Art of War: Understanding the Culture of Strategy

“Masters of the arts cannot be called adepts as long as they have not left behind attachments to their various skills. A mendicant asked an ancient saint, “What is the Way?” The saint said, “The normal mind is the Way.” The principle of this story applies to all arts. This is the stage where sicknesses of the mind are all gone, when you have become normal in mind and have no sicknesses even while in the midst of sicknesses.”
― Shambhala Publications, The Japanese Art of War: Understanding the Culture of Strategy

“In Musashi’s time, however, the way of the warrior was not a hobby but a total lifestyle. Such a life involved rigors and perils that were soon to disappear, even from the world of the Japanese samurai.”
― Shambhala Publications, The Japanese Art of War: Understanding the Culture of Strategy

“The arts of warfare are the science of military experts. Leaders in particular practice these arts, and soldiers should also know this science. In the present day there are no warriors with accurate understanding of the science of martial arts.”
― Shambhala Publications, The Japanese Art of War: Understanding the Culture of Strategy

“For hundreds of years the samurai not only were masters of the political fate of the nation, but were considered the leaders of the popular conscience. The morale and spirit of the warrior was as important to their influence on society as was their material power.”
― Shambhala Publications, The Japanese Art of War: Understanding the Culture of Strategy