“The Mongols did not find honor in fighting; they found honor in winning. They had a single goal in every campaign—total victory. Toward this end, it did not matter what tactics were used against the enemy or how the battles were fought or avoided being fought. Winning by clever deception or cruel trickery was still winning and carried no stain on the bravery of the warriors, since there would be plenty of other occasions for showing prowess on the field.”
― Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
― Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
“Do not throw yourself against what has become, enraged or bent on destruction. What will you put in its place? Do you not know that if you are successful in destroying what has become, you will then turn the will of destruction against yourself? But anyone who makes destruction their goal will perish through self-destruction. Much rather respect what has become, since reverence is a blessing.”
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“A snake that sheds its skin is still a snake.”
― Pachinko
― Pachinko
“When thinking leads to the unthinkable, it is time to return to simple life. What thinking cannot solve, life solves, and what action never decides is reserved for thinking. If I ascend to the highest and most difficult on the one hand, and seek to eke out redemption that reaches even higher, then the true way does not lead upward, but toward the depths, since only my other leads me beyond myself. But acceptance of the other means a descent into the opposite, from seriousnesss into the laughable, from suffering into the cheerful, from the beautiful into the ugly, from the pure into the impure.”
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―
“but from a very bad family, too, one can keep precious memories, if only one's soul knows how to seek out what is precious.”
― The Brothers Karamazov
― The Brothers Karamazov
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