Quotes from Zen in the Martial Arts

144 pages

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“When you lose your temper, you lose yourself—on the mat as well as in life.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find the Way.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“When an untoward event occurs in your life, react to it without haste or passion.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“For example, if you are fearful your mind will freeze, motion will be stopped and you will be defeated. If your mind is fixed on victory or defeating your opponent, you will be unable to function automatically.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts



“To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the highest skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the highest skill.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“The angry man will defeat himself in battle as well as in life.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“Only through practice and more practice, until you can do something without conscious effort.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“I can defeat you physically with or without a reason. But I can only defeat your mind with a reason. —JIM LAU”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“A man who has attained mastery of an art reveals it in his every action.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts



“Those who are patient in the trivial things in life and control themselves will one day have the same mastery in great and important things.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“Always remember: in life as well as on the mat an unfocused or ‘loose’ mind wastes energy.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“What stands in the way of effortless effort is caring, or a conscious attempt to do well.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“The principle of avoiding conflict and never opposing an aggressor’s strength head-on is the essence of aikido. We apply the same principle to problems that arise in life. The skilled aikidoist is as elusive as the truth of Zen; he makes himself into a koan—a puzzle which slips away the more one tries to solve it. He is like water in that he falls through the fingers of those who try to clutch him. Water does not hesitate before it yields, for the moment the fingers begin to close it moves away, not of its own strength, but by using the pressure applied to it. It is for this reason, perhaps, that one of the symbols for aikido is water.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“For the uncontrolled there is no wisdom, nor for the uncontrolled is there the power of concentration; and for him without concentration there is no peace. And for the unpeaceful, how can there be happiness? —BHAGAVAD GITA”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts



“The mind is like a fertile garden,” Bruce said. “It will grow anything you wish to plant—beautiful flowers or weeds. And so it is with successful, healthy thoughts or with negative ones that will, like weeds, strangle and crowd the others. Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind for they are the weeds that strangle confidence.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“We are like blades of grass or trees of the forest, creations of the universe, of the spirit of the universe, and the spirit of the universe has neither life nor death. Vanity is the only obstacle to life.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“Only after several years of training did I come to realize that the deepest purpose of the martial arts is to serve as a vehicle for personal spiritual development.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


“And for the unpeaceful, how can there be happiness?”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


Popular quotes

“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They are in each other all along,” she recited.”
― Emma Scott, quote from Full Tilt


“Charles backed down. He is reputed to have said, Capon, Capon, vous êtes un mauvais chapon. ‘Capon, Capon, you are one evil chicken.’ ”
“Chicken jokes are quite prevalent in the family,” the countess said.
The count said, “We eat capons at Christmas. It’s a little cannibalistic.”
― Douglas Preston, quote from The Monster of Florence


“Not much time will be gained, O Athenians, in return for the evil name which you will get from the detractors of the city, who will say that you killed Socrates, a wise man; for they will call me wise even although I am not wise when they want to reproach you. If you had waited a little while, your desire would have been fulfilled in the course of nature. For I am far advanced in years, as you may perceive, and not far from death. I am speaking now only to those of you who have condemned me to death. And I have another thing to say to them: You think that I was convicted through deficiency of words - I mean, that if I had thought fit to leave nothing undone, nothing unsaid, I might have gained an acquittal. Not so; the deficiency which led to my conviction was not of words - certainly not. But I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination to address you as you would have liked me to address you, weeping and wailing and lamenting, and saying and doing many things which you have been accustomed to hear from others, and which, as I say, are unworthy of me. But I thought that I ought not to do anything common or mean in the hour of danger: nor do I now repent of the manner of my defence, and I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet at law ought any man to use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death. I am old and move slowly, and the slower runner has overtaken me, and my accusers are keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness, has overtaken them. And now I depart hence condemned by you to suffer the penalty of death, and they, too, go their ways condemned by the truth to suffer the penalty of villainy and wrong; and I must abide by my award - let them abide by theirs. I suppose that these things may be regarded as fated, - and I think that they are well.”
― Plato, quote from Apology


“they arrived back at the Mist Village. The”
― Aleron Kong, quote from The Land: Founding


“I realized that searching for a mentor has become the professional equivalent of waiting for Prince Charming. We all grew up on the fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty," which instructs young women that if they just wait for their prince to arrive, they will be kissed and whisked away on a white horse to live happily ever after. Now young women are told that if they can just find the right mentor, they will be pushed up the ladder and whisked away to the corner office to live happily ever after. Once again, we are teaching women to be too dependent on others.”
― Sheryl Sandberg, quote from Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead


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