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If you are slain in battle, you should be resolved to have your corpse facing the enemy.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo

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Yamamoto Tsunetomo
Age: 60 †
Born: 1659
Born: June 11
Died: 1719
Died: November 30
Bushi
Philosopher
Writer
Hizen Domain
War
Slain
Corpse
Resolved
Corpses
Facing
Battle
Enemy

More quotes by Yamamoto Tsunetomo

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You cannot tell whether a person is good or bad by his vicissitudes in life. Good and bad fortune are matters of fate.
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The person who practices an art is an artist, not a samurai, and one should have the intention of being called a samurai.
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In the eyes of mercy, no one should have hateful thoughts. Feel pity for the man who is even more at fault. The area and size of mercy is limitless.
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By bringing shame to a person, how could one expect to make him a better man?
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Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction. Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else, but go to the extent of living single thought by single thought.
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Human life is truly a short affair. It is better to live doing the things that you like.
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An affected laugh shows lack of self-respect in a man and lewdness in a woman. It is carelessness to go about with one's hands inside the slits in the sides of his hakama.
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If one is but secure at the foundation, he will not be pained by departure from minor details or affairs that are contrary to expectation. But in the end, the details of a matter are important. The right and wrong of one's way of doing things are found in trivial matters.
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By inconsistency and frivolity we stray from the Way and show ourselves to be beginners. In this we do much harm.
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There is not a man who does not get senile by the time he reaches sixty. And when one thinks that he will not be senile, he is already so.
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If a retainer will just think about what he is to do for the day at hand, he will be able to do anything. If it is a single day's work, one should be able to put up with it. Tomorrow, too is but a single day.
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One must know the so-called 'lesson of a downpour. A man, caught in a sudden rain en route, dashes along the road not to get wet or drenched. Once one takes it for granted that in rain he naturally gets wet, he can be in a tranquil frame of mind even when soaked to the skin. This lesson applies to everything.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo
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In the Kamigata area, they have a sort of tiered lunchbox they use for a single day when flower viewing. Upon returning, they throw them away, trampling them underfoot. The end is important in all things.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo
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There is nothing we should be quite so grateful for as the last line of the poem that goes, 'When your own heart asks.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo
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All of man’s work is a bloody business. That fact, today, is considered foolish, affairs are finished cleverly with words alone, and jobs that require effort are avoided. I would like young men to have some understanding of this.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo
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The way of the Samurai is found in death.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo
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One should make his decisions within the space of seven breaths.
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The saying 'the arts aid the body' is for samurai of other regions. For samurai of the Nabeshima clan the arts bring ruin to the body.
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I have found that the Way of the samurai is death. This means that when you are compelled to choose between life and death, you must quickly choose death.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo
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Singlemindedness is all-powerful.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo