Nitobe Inazō > Quotes

“A truly brave man is ever serene; he is never taken by surprise; nothing ruffles the equanimity of his spirit. In the heat of battle he remains cool; in the midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind. Earthquakes do not shake him, he laughs at storms. We admire him as truly great, who, in the menacing presence of danger or death, retains his self-possession; who, for instance, can compose a poem under impending peril or hum a strain in the face of death. Such indulgence betraying no tremor in the writing or in the voice, is taken as an infallible index of a large nature—of what we call a capacious mind (Yoyū), which, far from being pressed or crowded, has always room for something more.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, The Soul Of Japan

“Knowledge becomes really such only when it is assimilated in the mind of the learner and shows in his character.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan

“Beneath the instinct to fight there lurks a diviner instinct to love.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan

“Tranquillity is courage in repose. It is a statical manifestation of valor, as daring deeds are a dynamical. A truly brave man is ever serene; he is never taken by surprise; nothing ruffles the equanimity of his spirit.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“the feeling of distress is the root of benevolence, therefore a benevolent man is ever mindful of those who are suffering and in distress.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“What is important is to try to develop insights and wisdom rather than mere knowledge, respect someone's character rather than his learning, and nurture men of character rather than mere talents.”
― Inazo Nitobe

“A samurai was essentially a man of action.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, The Soul Of Japan

“If there is anything to do, there is certainly a best way to do it, and the best way is both the most economical and the most graceful.”
― Inazo Nitobe

“Did not Socrates, all the while he unflinchingly refused to concede one iota of loyalty to his daemon, obey with equal fidelity and equanimity the command of his earthly master, the State? His conscience he followed, alive; his country he served, dying. Alack the day when a state grows so powerful as to demand of its citizens the dictates of their consciences!”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan

“Bushido as an independent code of ethics may vanish, but its power will not perish from the earth; its schools of martial prowess or civic honor may be demolished, but its light and its glory will long survive their ruins. Like its symbolic flower, after it is blown to the four winds, it will still bless mankind with the perfume with which it will enrich life.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan

“Human life has sorrow;" "They who meet must part;" "He that is born must die;”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“The Yamato spirit is not a tame, tender plant, but a wild--in the sense of natural--growth; it is indigenous to the soil; its accidental qualities it may share with the flowers of other lands, but in its essence it remains the original, spontaneous outgrowth of our clime. But its nativity is not its sole claim to our affection. The refinement and grace of its beauty appeal to our æsthetic sense as no other flower can. We cannot share the admiration of the Europeans for their roses, which lack the simplicity of our flower. Then, too, the thorns that are hidden beneath the sweetness of the rose, the tenacity with which she clings to life, as though loth or afraid to die rather than drop untimely, preferring to rot on her stem; her showy colours and heavy odours--all these are traits so unlike our flower, which carries no dagger or poison under its beauty, which is ever ready to depart life at the call of nature, whose colours are never gorgeous, and whose light fragrance never palls. Beauty of colour and of form is limited in its showing; it is a fixed quality of existence, whereas fragrance is volatile, ethereal as the breathing of life. So in all religious ceremonies frankincense and myrrh play a prominent part. There is something spirituelle in redolence. When the delicious perfume of the sakura quickens the morning air, as the sun in its course rises to illumine first the isles of the Far East, few sensations are more serenely exhilarating than to inhale, as it were, the very breath of beauteous day.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“Chivalry is itself the poetry of life." —SCHLEGEL, Philosophy of History.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“Tranquillity is courage in repose.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“dishonor is like a scar on a tree, which time, instead of effacing, only helps to enlarge." Mencius”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“When the delicious perfume of the sakura quickens the morning air, as the sun in its course rises to illumine first the isles of the Far East, few sensations are more serenely exhilarating than to inhale, as it were, the very breath of beauteous day.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido the Soul of Japan: Illustrated

“It is a brave act of valor to contemn death, but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valor to dare to live”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“There are, if I may so say, three powerful spirits, which have from time to time, moved on the face of the waters, and given a predominant impulse to the moral sentiments and energies of mankind. These are the spirits of liberty, of religion, and of honor." —HALLAM, Europe in the Middle Ages.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“Spiritual service, be it of priest or teacher, was not to be repaid in gold or silver, not because it was valueless but because it was invaluable.”
― Inazō Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan

“In the heat of battle he remains cool; in the midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“You are to be proud of your enemy; then, the success of your enemy is your success also”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“When men's fowls and dogs are lost, they know to seek for them again, but they lose their mind and do not know to seek for it.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“Nietzsche spoke for the samurai heart when he wrote, “You are to be proud of your enemy; then, the success of your enemy is your success also.” Indeed valor and honor alike required that we should own as enemies in war only such as prove worthy of being friends in peace.”
― Inazō Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan

“Hae tibi erunt artes - pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos"

"These shall be your arts, to set forth the law of peace, to spare the conquered, and to subdue the proud.”
― Inazō Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan

“Rectitude is the power of deciding upon a certain course of conduct in accordance with reason, without wavering—to die when it is right to die, to strike when to strike is right.”
― Inazō Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan

“as Nietzsche puts it, “Honesty is the youngest of virtues”—in other words, it is the foster-child of industry, of modern industry. Without this mother, Veracity was like a blue-blood orphan whom only the most cultivated mind could adopt and nourish. Such minds were general among the samurai, but, for want of a more democratic and utilitarian foster-mother, the tender child failed to thrive.”
― Inazō Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan

“Indeed, valour and honour alike required that we should own as enemies in war only such as prove worthy of being friends in peace.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan

“Bushido. The sense of honor which cannot bear being looked down upon as an inferior power,—that was the strongest of motives.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“Filial Piety, which is considered one of the two wheels of the chariot of Japanese ethics—Loyalty being the other.”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan

“Courage is doing what is right”
― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, the Soul of Japan