78 Quotes by Eiji Yoshikawa

It is easy to surpass a predecessor, but difficult to avoid being surpassed by a successor.

The greatest happiness of life was to stand at the difficult border between success and failure.

Fighting isn't all there is to the Art of War. The men who think that way, and are satisfied to have food to eat and a place to sleep, are mere vagabonds. A serious student is much more concerned with training his mind and disciplining his spirit than with developing martial skills.

Her only weapons were her tears.

I wouldn't call Musashi ordinary.But he is. That's what's extraordinary about him. He's not content with relying on whatever natural gifts he may have. Knowing he's ordinary, he's always trying to improve himself. No one appreciates the agonizing effort he's had to make. Now that his year's of training have yielded such spectacular results, everybody's talking about his 'god-given talent.' That's how men who don't try very hard comfort themselves.

It's no good to want to win still more when you have already won.

She needed intimacy and a sense of partaking in, not just observing, real life.

If a man wanted to put the entire universe in his breast, he couldn't do it with his chest stuck out.

The world is always full of the sound of waves. The little fishes, abandoning themselves to the waves, dance and sing, and play, but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows its depth?