When confronted with two alternatives, life and death, one is to choose death without hesitation.

When confronted with two alternatives, life and death, one is to choose death without hesitation.

When one is writing a letter, he should think that the recipient will make it into a hanging scroll.

Go ahead and gamble a lie. A person who will not tell you seven lies within a hundred yards is useless as a man.

An affected laugh shows lack of self-respect in a man and lewdness in a woman. It is carelessness to go about with one's hands inside the slits in the sides of his hakama.

It is a principle of the art of war that one should simply lay down his life and strike. If one's opponent also does the same, it is a even match. Defeating one's opponent is then a matter of faith and destiny.

Calculating people are contemptable. The reason for this is that calculation deals with loss and gain, and the loss and gain mind never stops. Death is considered loss and life is considered gain. Thus, death is something that such a person does not care for, and he is contemptable. Furthermore, scholars and their like are men who with wit and speech hide their own true cowardice and greed. People often misjudge this.