King Bak

“I know nothing about how to win over others. I know only the way know the way to win over myself."

-- attributed to the (master) swordsman Yagyu, who was a teacher (and samurai?) to the Shogun himself.”
― Tsunetomo Yamamoto

“He had a better mind and a more rigorous temperament than me; he thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. And call the result common sense.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“If you are unaware that the world is teeming with ineptitude from the beginning, you will develop a bitter countenance, and in turn others will eschew you.”
― Tsunetomo Yamamoto

“If one has no earnest daily intention, does not consider what it is to be a warrior even in his dreams, and lives through the day idly, he can be said to be worthy of punishment.”
― Tsunetomo Yamamoto, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai