Best Musashi Quotes

#1. Imitation is the surest form of flattery and failure. I am not interested with your talk about my ideas. I am more interested in your applying them to your life. If you do not, then you are essentially not in accord with your own mind.

Miyamoto Musashi

#2. Becoming the opponent means you should put yourself in an opponent's place and think from the opponent's point of view.

Miyamoto Musashi

#3. Under the sword lifted high, There is hell making you tremble. But go ahead, And you have the land of bliss.

Miyamoto Musashi

#4. There is even rhythm in being empty.

Miyamoto Musashi

#5. I dreamt of worldly success once.

Miyamoto Musashi

#6. The purpose of today's training is to defeat yesterday's understanding.

Miyamoto Musashi

#7. As far as Im concerned, I regret nothing.

Miyamoto Musashi

#8. Why would you want to appear as one thing and be another? If you are a warrior then you are a warrior and if you are not a warrior then you are not a warrior. The Way of the warrior is the Way of the warrior. To be a warrior, look like a warrior and stand like a warrior. Do not be false to yourself.

Miyamoto Musashi

#9. If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything.

Miyamoto Musashi

#10. What is essential is to suddenly make a move totally unexpected by the opponent, pick up on the advantage of fright, and seize the victory right then and there.

Miyamoto Musashi

#11. It is difficult to realize the true Way just through sword-fencing. Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things.

Miyamoto Musashi

#12. It may seem difficult at first, but everything is difficult at first.

Miyamoto Musashi

#13. You should not have any special fondness for a particular weapon, or anything else, for that matter. Too much is the same as not enough. Without imitating anyone else, you should have as much weaponry as suits you.

Miyamoto Musashi

#14. All man are the same except for their belief in their own selves, regardless of what others may think of them

Miyamoto Musashi

#15. If there is a Way involving the spirit of not being defeated, to help oneself and gain honour, it is the Way of Strategy.

Miyamoto Musashi

#16. Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.

Miyamoto Musashi

#17. This is a truth: when you sacrifice your life, you must make fullest use of your weaponry. It is false not to do so, and to die with a weapon yet undrawn.

Miyamoto Musashi

#18. What I call the void is where nothing exists. It is about things outside man's knowledge. Of course the void does not exist. By knowing what exist, you can know that which does not exist. That is the void.

Miyamoto Musashi

#19. Do not waste time idling or thinking after you have set your goals

Miyamoto Musashi

#20. No man is invincible, and therefore no man can fully understand that which would make him invincible. Even with complete and thorough study there is always the possibility of being defeated and although one may be expert in a particular form, mastery is something a man never stops seeking to attain.

Miyamoto Musashi

#21. There is timing in everything. Timing in strategy cannot be mastered without a great deal of practice.

Miyamoto Musashi

#22. People in this world look at things mistakenly, and think that what they do not understand must be the void. This is not the true void. It is bewilderment ...

Miyamoto Musashi

#23. Then you will come to see things in an all-encompassing sense and, taking the void as the Way, you will see the Way as void.

In the void is virtue, and no evil. Wisdom exists, principle exists, the way exists. Spirit is Void.

Miyamoto Musashi

#24. The ultimate aim of martial arts is not having to use them

Miyamoto Musashi

#25. Do not regret what you have done

Miyamoto Musashi

#26. The fact of the matter is that the world does not care about you or me, our hopes, our desires, or our dreams. And, the world of dreams, hopes, and desires that is constructed between our ears it is not necessarily a reflection of what is actually going on around us.

Miyamoto Musashi

#27. You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honour.

Miyamoto Musashi

#28. There are many ways of understanding simple things, but generally the opposite is true for difficult ideas

Miyamoto Musashi

#29. Do nothing which is of no use

Miyamoto Musashi

#30. The true science of martial arts means practicing them in such a way that they will be useful at any time, and to teach them in such a way that they will be useful in all things.

Miyamoto Musashi