Eiji Yoshikawa Quotes

it is easy to surpass a predecessor, but difficult to avoid being surpassed by a successor.

~ Eiji Yoshikawa

Fighting isn't all there is to the Art of War. The men who think that way, and are satisfied to have food to eat and a place to sleep, are mere vagabonds. A serious student is much more concerned with training his mind and disciplining his spirit than with developing martial skills.

~ Eiji Yoshikawa

The summit is believed to be the object of the climb. But its true object—the joy of living—is not in the peak itself, but in the adversities encountered on the way up. There are valleys, cliffs, streams, precipices, and slides, and as he walks these steep paths, the climber may think he cannot go any farther, or even that dying would be better than going on. But then he resumes fighting the difficulties directly in front of him, and when he is finally able to turn and look back at what he has overcome, he finds he has truly experienced the joy of living while on life's very road.

~ Eiji Yoshikawa

It's interesting, isn't it? Being in the world.

~ Eiji Yoshikawa

Her only weapons were her tears.

~ Eiji Yoshikawa

She needed intimacy and a sense of partaking in, not just observing, real life.

~ Eiji Yoshikawa

The greatest happiness of life was to stand at the difficult border between success and failure.

~ Eiji Yoshikawa

The world is always full of the sound of waves.The little fishes, abandoning themselves to the waves, dance and sing, and play, but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it depth?

~ Eiji Yoshikawa

If a man wanted to put the entire universe in his breast, he couldn't do it with his chest stuck out.

~ Eiji Yoshikawa

Anywhere there is life, there are eyes. And things, too, speak to those who have ears to hear.

~ Eiji Yoshikawa

A day in a man’s life is constructed according to whether he accepts or rejects flashes of inspiration.

~ Eiji Yoshikawa

It's no good to want to win still more when you have already won.

~ Eiji Yoshikawa