Adversity gives birth to greatness. The greater the challenges and difficulties we face, the greater the opportunity we have to grow and develop as people. A life without adversity, a life of ease and comfort, produces nothing and leaves us with nothing. This is one of the indisputable facts of life.

The reactions of the human heart are not mechanical and predictable but infinitely subtle and delicate.

Nothing is more precious than peace. Peace is the most basic starting point for the advancement of humankind.

Since ancient times, people from throughout Asia have brought to Japan their talents, knowledge and energy, helping to lay the basis for Japan's existence as a country.

There’s no need for us to be held back by the past or how things have been so far. The important thing is what seeds we are sowing now for the future.

All people have a natural desire to be needed, to have their importance to others tangibly confirmed.

Poems and songs penned as an unstoppable outpouring of the heart take on a life of their own. They transcend the limits of nationality and time as they pass from person to person, from one heart to another.