Musashi Quotes

“It is easy to crush an enemy outside oneself but impossible to defeat an enemy within.”
― 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

“...you're going to find people from all over the country, everyone hungry for money and position. You won't make a name for yourself just doing what the next man does. You'll have to distinguish yourself in some way.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi

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

“The world is always full of the sound of waves. The little fishes, abandoning themselves to the waves, dance and sing, and play, but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows its depth?”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi

“Enemies were teachers in disguise.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“There's nothing more frightening than a half-baked do-gooder who knows nothing of the world but takes it upon himself to tell the world what's good for it.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi

“Hold on to your life and make it honest and brave.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi

“He saw the white paper as the great universe of nonexistence. A single stroke would give rise to existence within it. He could evoke rain or wind at will, but whatever he drew, his heart would remain in the painting forever. If his heart was tainted, the picture would be tainted; if his heart was listless, so would the picture be. If he attempted to make a show of his craftsmanship, it could not be concealed. Men’s bodies fade away, but ink lives on. The image of his heart would continue to breathe after he himself was gone.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“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

“Keberanian sejati mengenal rasa takut
Dia tahu bagaimana takut kepada apa yang harus ditakuti
Orang-orang yang tulus menghargai hidup dengan penuh kecintaan
Mereka mendekapnya sebagai permata yang berharga
Dan mereka memilih waktu serta tempat yang tepat untuk menyerahkannya
Mati dengan penuh kemuliaan”
― Yoshikawa Eiji, Musashi: An Epic Novel of Samurai Era

“There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi

“It is easy to surpass a predecessor, but difficult to avoid being surpassed by a successor.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi

“You seem to be under the misconception that if you perform one brave deed, that alone makes you a samurai. Well it doesn't! You let that one act of loyalty convince you of your righteousness. The more convinced you became, the more harm you caused yourself and everyone else.”
― 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

“The line between life and death is not thicker than an eyelid.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi

“On the eleventh day, it finally stopped raining. Musashi chafed to be out in the open, but it was another week before they were able to return to work under a bright sun. The field they had so arduously carved out of the wilderness had disappeared without a trace; in its place were rocks, and a river where none had been before. The water seemed to mock them just as the villagers had. Iori, seeing no way to reclaim their loss, looked up and said, “This place is beyond hope. Let’s look for better land somewhere else.” “No,” Musashi said firmly. “With the water drained off, this would make excellent farmland. I examined the location from every angle before I chose it.” “What if we have another heavy rain?” “We’ll fix it so the water doesn’t come this way. We’ll lay a dam from here all the way to that hill over there.” ‘That’s an awful lot of work.” “You seem to forget that this is our dōjō. I’m not giving up a foot of this land until I see barley growing on it.” Musashi carried on his stubborn struggle throughout the winter, into the second month of the new year. It took several weeks of strenuous labor to dig ditches, drain the water off, pile dirt for a dike and then cover it with heavy rocks. Three weeks later everything was again washed away. “Look,” Iori said, “we’re wasting our energy on something impossible. Is that the Way of the Sword?” The question struck close to the bone, but Musashi would not give in. Only a month passed before the next disaster, a heavy snowfall followed by a quick thaw. Iori, on his return from trips to the temple for food, inevitably wore a long face, for the people there rode him mercilessly about Musashi’s failure. And finally Musashi himself began to lose heart. For two full days and on into a third, he sat silently brooding and staring at his field. Then it dawned on him suddenly. Unconsciously, he had been trying to create a neat, square field like those common in other parts of the Kanto Plain, but this was not what the terrain called for. Here, despite the general flatness, there were slight variations in the lay of the land and the quality of the soil that argued for an irregular shape. “What a fool I’ve been,” he exclaimed aloud. “I tried to make the water flow where I thought it should and force the dirt to stay where I thought it ought to be. But it didn’t work. How could it? Water’s water, dirt’s dirt. I can’t change their nature. What I’ve got to do is learn to be a servant to the water and a protector of the land.” In his own way, he had submitted to the attitude of the peasants. On that day he became nature’s manservant. He ceased trying to impose his will on nature and let nature lead the way, while at the same time seeking out possibilities beyond the grasp of other inhabitants of the plain. The snow came again, and another thaw; the muddy water oozed slowly over the plain. But Musashi had had time to work out his new approach, and his field remained intact. “The same rules must apply to governing people,” he said to himself. In his notebook, he wrote: “Do not attempt to oppose the way of the universe. But first make sure you know the way of the universe.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“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

“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

“If the talents I was born with are the right ones, I may someday achieve my goal. If not, I may go through life being as stupid as I am now.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“Still, in a fight like that, you never know. There’s a superhuman element involved. All warriors have to face it; winning or losing is partly a matter of luck.”
― 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

“Orang yang benar-benar berani adalah yang mencintai hidup dan mendambakannya sebagai harta kekayaan yang sekali hilang takkan dapat ditemukan kembali.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi

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

“Beyond the shadow of a doubt, food was more important than a woman's suffering. ”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi

“Those who love seek a philosophy and, because of this, are fond of solitude.”
― 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

“Danger was the grindstone on which the swordsman whetted his spirit. Enemies were teachers in disguise.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era