Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu Quotes

“Fortunately, Ieyasu had with him Honda Tadakatsu, who intimidated the local rustics with his naginata. This weapon was named Tonbokiri or Dragonfly Cutter because legend had it that the blade was so razor sharp that one day, when a dragonfly had alighted on its edge, it had been instantly sliced in two. It was the creation of the famed swordsmith Fujiwara Masazane and would become one of the Tenka san so (天下三槍), the three legendary spears of Japan.102”
― Danny Chaplin, Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan

“Akechi was also extremely self-conscious of his growing baldness and Nobunaga exacerbated this too by taking Akechi’s head under his arm and pretending to drum on his bald pate, much to the amusement of the other Oda vassals present.”
― Danny Chaplin, Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan

“Since one person differs from another in disposition, when men are appointed to offices this should be tested, and their tendencies observed and their ability estimated, so that the office may be well filled. A saw cannot do the work of a gimlet, and a hammer cannot take the place of a knife, and men are just like this. There is a use for both sharp and blunt at the right time, and if this is not well apprehended the relation of lord and vassal will become disturbed. The Legacy of Ieyasu”
― Danny Chaplin, Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan

“The Asai clan’s daimyo since 1560 was Asai Nagamasa, a sensible and level-headed chieftain with a reputation as a capable bushi.”
― Danny Chaplin, Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan

“Fast like the wind, Silent like a forest, Intrusive like the fire, Immobile like a mountain.”
― Danny Chaplin, Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan

“Nobunaga had originally wished to follow his victory at Okehazama by marching into Mikawa and attacking Motoyasu but his shrewd new rising general, Kinoshita Tokichiro, had advised him as follows: ‘When you have won a victory, tighten the strings of your helmet!’ This phrase, which subsequently became a famous Japanese proverb, meant that having won at Okehazama, Nobunaga should switch from military strength to deception and set his enemies against each other.”
― Danny Chaplin, Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan

“Since one person differs from another in disposition, when men are appointed to offices this should be tested, and their tendencies observed and their ability estimated, so that the office may be well filled. A saw cannot do the work of a gimlet, and a hammer cannot take the place of a knife, and men are just like this. There is a use for both sharp and blunt at the right time, and if this is not well apprehended the relation of lord and vassal will become disturbed.”
― Danny Chaplin, Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan

“Takechiyo opted to support the smaller group, adducing as his reason for doing so that a smaller group would always be better motivated than a larger one, whose members would be lulled into complacency by their superior numbers.”
― Danny Chaplin, Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan

“These obligated retainers gathered together by warlords into private armies were the samurai. The evocative term ‘samurai’ derives from the verb samurau or saburau (‘to serve’) and so means quite literally ‘those who serve’.”
― Danny Chaplin, Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan

“Much later, Emperors reigned from the kikukamonsho, the Chrysanthemum Throne, a name which referred to the throne itself as well as the imperial chrysanthemum crest (kiku). When the later Japanese thought of their nation as a political unity at all they imagined the god-descended individual who sat upon the kikukamonsho and ruled according to divine mandate.”
― Danny Chaplin, Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan

“intrepid, and he was not lacking even in moral virtues, being”
― Danny Chaplin, Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan