I wouldn't say Musashi is ordinary. But he is. That's what's extraordinary about him. He is not content to rely on whatever natural gifts he may have. Knowing he is ordinary, he is constantly trying to improve himself. No one appreciates the agonizing effort he's had to make. Now that his years of training have yielded such spectacular results, everybody's talking about his 'God-given talent.' That's how men who don't try very hard comfort themselves.

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

Love was like a toothache.

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.

Think what you like. There are people who die by remaining alive and others who gain life by dying.

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

The world is a stone wall ... and they have put the stones so close together that there is not a single crack through which one may enter.