Philbro

“Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.”
― Dōgen

“Linguistic communication is wholly dependent on the prior idiosyncratic manners in which its speakers and hearers have previously come to grasp the contingent world patterns to which words dumbly point. The link that conveys something of the contents of the world through a speaker’s linguistic token and on to a hearer’s understanding is wholly indirect, passing mandatorily through whatever has been separately understood by speaker and hearer of the structure of the world itself. This might be put by saying that a pragmatic understanding of language goes absolutely all the way down. There is no such thing as mere linguistic understanding. Understanding language is buried in understanding the world as a whole.”
― Ruth Millikan

“For even in the triviality of a single playing card missing from a deck, the world's order is inevitably turned awry.”
― Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow

“When in a fight to the death, one wants to employ all one's weapons to the utmost. I must say that to die with one's sword still sheathed is most regrettable.”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy