When someone is giving you his opinion, you should receive it with deep gratitude even though it is worthless. If you don't, he will not tell you the things that he has seen and heard about you again.
Yamamoto TsunetomoYou cannot tell whether a person is good or bad by his vicissitudes in life. Good and bad fortune are matters of fate.
Yamamoto TsunetomoIt is better to have some unhappiness while one is still young, for if a person does not experience some bitterness, his disposition will not settle down.
Yamamoto TsunetomoMeditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when oneโs body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of oneโs master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead
Yamamoto Tsunetomo