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

Oh, you crows! Feast away! What a spread! Soup straight from the eye sockets! And thick red sake! But don't have too much Or you'll surely get drunk.

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.

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

It does happen, of course, that the priesthood has been on bad terms with womankind for some three thousand years. You see, Buddhism teaches that women are evil. Fiends. Messengers of hell. I've spent years immersed in the scriptures, so it's no accident that you and I fight all the time.

I want to lead an important life. I want to do it because I was born a human being.

A wise man who cultivates wisdom may sometimes drown in it.