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When I consider the state of things in our fief, I find that those who hold positions and receive official stipends are incapable of the utmost in loyalty and patriotic service. Loyalty of the usual sort-perhaps, but if it is true loyalty and service you seek, then you must abandon this fief and plan a grass-roots uprising.

Yoshida Shoin

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Yoshida Shoin
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Life and death, union and separation, follow hard upon one another. Nothing is steadfast but the will, nothing endures but one's achieve­ments. These alone count in life.
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