35 Quotes About Bushido

. . . for any worthwhile martial arts skill to be pragmatic, it has to be done live, otherwise it is of limited or no use in actual combat

Bushido refers not only to martial rectitude but personal rectitude. We understand that in serving each other we serve our own interests. In serving our world, our world serves us. Allowing us to live in harmony with it.

A samurai chooses to serve a master and does it out of respect and love, not because they are forced. Service to them is not demeaning; service is an expression of their prowess and their pride; they serve because only they are strong enough to serve with such flawless perfection and such consummate ability. It is a source of pride to them.

True Martial Arts is universal, simple and practical. Anything else is too complex to be used in combat.

Bushidō is about experiencing life in every breath. Seeing life in the simplest of things. There is beauty and honor in that.

You told me once that being a samurai means “to serve”,’ said Jack. ‘That our duty is to our Emperor, our daimyo and our family. I didn’t understand at the time, but I now know what duty means. As samurai, we may have to kill, or be killed, if we want to protect those we serve and love.

A kunoichi is married to her duty, and to death.

Blackthorne, beside the gates, was still turmoiled by his boundless joy at her reprieve and he remembered how his own will had been stretched that night of his near-seppuku, when he had had to get up as a man and walk home as a man unsupported, and became samurai. And he watched her, despising the need for this courage, yet understanding it, even honoring it.

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!