When all other methods fail, it is proper to hold the sword in hand.

You must not take out your sword because if you try to kill someone, you must die for it yourself. What you must do instead is kill yourself, kill your own mind.

A soldier's first duty is to obey, otherwise you might as well do away with soldiering.

The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy's cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him.

Students of the Ichi school Way of strategy should train from the start with the sword and long sword in either hand. This is the truth: when you sacrifice your life, you must make fullest use of your weaponry. It is false not to do so, and to die with a weapon yet undrawn.

A sword by itself does not slay; it is merely the weapon used by the slayer.

There is the spirit of winning without a sword. There is also the spirit of holding the long sword but not winning. The various methods cannot be expressed in writing. You must train well.

No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.

the sword also means clean-ness + death

I fought till my sword did cleave to my hand; and then they were joined together as if a sword grew out of my arm; and when the blood ran through my fingers, then I fought with most courage.

In the Way of my school, it is proper procedure for novices to train by wielding a long sword in one hand and a short sword in the other. This is crucial. When the time comes to abandon life in combat, a warrior must make full use of all the weapons at his disposal. To perish with a weapon uselessly sheathed at one’s side is shameful.

719. One sword keepes another in the sheath.

In politics, you live by the sword, and you die by the sword.

If survival calls for the bearing of arms, bear them you must. But the most important part of the challenge is for you to find another means that does not come with the killing of your fellow man.