All stories have a beginning, a middle and an ending, and if they’re any good, the ending is a beginning.
There is no dignity for either the sufferer or the torturer.
The search for the truth is the most important work in the whole world, and the most dangerous.
Anger is something you should only vent in front of intimates, and friends and relations. Never be angry in front of strangers because you lose face.
Love is a Christian word, Anjin-san. Love is a Christian thought, a Christian ideal. We have no word for ‘love’ as I understand you to mean it. Duty, loyalty, honor, respect, desire, those words and thoughts are what we have, all that we need.
The more I know, the more sure I am I know so little. The eternal paradox.
Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life – Shogun.
Isn’t man but a blossom taken by wind, and only the mountains and the sea and the stars and this land of the gods everlasting?
What are clouds, but an excuse for the sky? What is life, but an escape from death?
Christ, it’s so good to be alive.
God gives us intelligence to uncover the wonders of nature. Without the gift, nothing is possible.
Changi for me – of course it’s easy to be wise after the event, and to discuss it cleverly after the event – was about as near as you can get to being dead and still be alive.
To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline and training is all about.
How can a man be so brave and so stupid, so gentle and so cruel, so warming and so detestable – all at the same time?
The scarcity of years does not necessitate lack of wisdom.
And Adam ruled, for he was the King. Until the day his will to be King deserted him. Then he died, food for a stronger. And the strongest was always the King, not by strength alone, but King by cunning and luck and strength together. Among the rats.
Of what real value is a title? The power is the only important thing.
Isn’t it only laughter we can stay human?
First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.
How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.