You may train for a long time, but if you merely move your hands and feet and jump up and down like a puppet, learning karate is not very different from learning a dance. You will never have reached the heart of the matter; you will have failed to grasp the quintessence of karate-do.

One of the most striking features of karate is that it may be engaged in by anybody, young or old, strong or weak, male or female.

Inner mental technique is more important than the physical one.

Hoping to see karate included in the universal physical education taught in our public schools, I set about revising the kata so as to make them as simple as possible. Times change, the world changes, and obviously the martial arts must change too. The karate that high school students practice today is not the same karate that was practiced even as recently as ten years ago [this book was written in 1956], and it is a long way indeed from the karate I learned when I was a child in Okinawa.

Karate is a defensive art from beginning to end.

Since karate is a martial art, you must practice with the utmost seriousness from the very beginning.

Only a true weakling is capable of true courage.