Miyamoto Musashi Quotes

Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world

Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful.

Know that there are no other forms apart from these five in the School of the Two Swords.

One-thousand days of training to forge, ten-thousand days of training to refine. But a [Kendo] bout is decided in a split second.

La palabra carpintero se escribe con caracteres que significan «gran pericia» o «gran maestro». Puesto que la ciencia de las artes marciales implica una gran habilidad y una planificación con maestría, la describo en términos comparativos a la carpintería.

To master the virtue of the long sword is to govern the world and oneself, thus the long sword is the basis of strategy. The principle is "strategy by means of the long sword". If he attains the virtue of the long sword, one man can beat ten men. Just as one man can beat ten, so a hundred men can beat a thousand, and a thousand men can beat ten thousand. In my strategy, one man is the same as ten thousand, so this strategy is the complete warrior's craft. The Way of the warrior does not include other Ways, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, certain traditions, artistic accomplishments and dancing. But even though these are not part of the Way, if you know the Way broadly you will see it in everything. Men must polish their particular Way.

Es esencial pulir diligentemente el intelecto y el espíritu. Una vez que hayáis utilizado vuestro intelecto hasta el punto en el que podéis distinguir lo que es verdad y lo que no lo es en el mundo, en el que podéis decir lo que es bueno y lo que es malo, y cuando ya habéis experimentado varios dominios y ya no podéis ser engañados en absoluto por la gente, vuestro espíritu habrá quedado imbuido del conocimiento y de la sabiduría del arte de la guerra.

Cuando miro a la sociedad, veo que la gente convierte las artes en ganancias comerciales;

You can only fight the way you practice

This Fudo Myo-o, whose name means “Immovable Wisdom King,” is represented with a sword to cut through our ignorance and a rope to bind up our emotions

It is difficult to realize the true Way just through sword-fencing. Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things.

In this the Fire Book of the NiTo Ichi school of strategy I describe fighting as fire.

To know ten thousand things, know one well

If you do not look at things on a large scale it will be difficult for you to master strategy. If you learn and attain this strategy you will never lose even to twenty or thirty enemies. More than anything to start with you must set your heart on strategy and earnestly stick to the Way. You will come to be able to actually beat men in fights, and to be able to win with your eye. Also by training you will be able to freely control your own body, conquer men with your body, and with sufficient training you will be able to beat ten men with your spirit.

Fourthly the Wind book. This book is not concerned with my Ichi school but with other schools of strategy. By Wind I mean old traditions, present-day traditions, and family traditions of strategy. Thus I clearly explain the strategies of the world. This is tradition. It is difficult to know yourself if you do not know others. To all Ways there are side-tracks. If you study a Way daily, and your spirit diverges, you may think you are obeying a good way, but objectively it is not the true Way. If you are following the true Way and diverge a little, this will later become a large divergence. You must realise this. Other strategies have come to be thought of as mere sword-fencing, and it is not unreasonable that this should be so. The benefit of my strategy, although it includes sword-fencing, lies in a separate principle. I have explained what is commonly meant by strategy in other schools in the Wind book.