Popular quotes about Japan! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 24
I remember my very first encounter with Japan. At that time, I was Deputy Mayor of St Petersburg. Out of nowhere, Japan's Consul General in St Petersburg came to my office and said Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs wanted to invite me to Japan. I was very surprised because I had nothing to do with Japan except being a judoka. This was an opportunity to visit Tokyo and a couple of other cities. And, you know, a capital is a capital everywhere: there is the official script and certain protocol. It is always easier to talk in the provinces, the conversation is more natural.
Vladimir PutinI speak of the old Japan, because out of the ashes of the old Japan there has risen a new Japan.
Shigeru YoshidaJapan will change. Let's create a country where innovation is constantly happening, giving birth to new industries to lead the world, when I visit Silicon Valley I want to think about how we can take Silicon Valley's ways and make them work in Japan.
Shinzo AbeIf we [Americans] are a strong people, a united people, why do we always have to hear how great we are? What is this self-love? Where does this come from? It got worse, because after the war we thought we'd won it. That's the first myth. Frankly, Russia won it. The Soviet Union sacrificed far greater form than anyone else to win that war. Secondly, we had the atomic bomb. We should not have dropped it on Japan. We did as an example to the Soviets, not to defeat Japan and to save American lives. These are myths that we explode with a lot of research early on.
Oliver StoneIn contrast to New Orleans, there was only minimal looting after the horrendous 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan - because, when you get down to it, Japanese aren't blacks.
Steve SailerI have to express sympathy from the bottom of my heart to those people who were taken as wartime comfort women. As a human being, I would like to express my sympathies, and also as prime minister of Japan I need to apologize to them.
Shinzo AbeAccording to our belief, Japan was founded by the Sun Goddess Amaterasu Omikami, who is revered by the entire nation for her all-pervading virtue, and from whom our Imperial House is descended.
Sadao ArakiIn a free country, America, or India, and Japan, and many places, democracy country, free country, but still within the sort of rule of law, some injustice, some sort of problems, some discrimination, and also some sort of scandals or the corruptions. These things, you see, they are always in my mind, I think many people agree, lack of moral principle.
Dalai LamaOn December 7, 1941, an event took place that had nothing to do with me or my family and yet which had devastating consequences for all of us - Japan bombed Pearl Harbour in a surprise attack. With that event began one of the shoddiest chapters in the tortuous history of democracy in North America.
David SuzukiChina should bury head to work diligently for 10 years and then raise head to face Japan.
Yuan ShikaiI've done a lot of Samurai film in Japan, and sometimes done the choreography by myself.
Hiroyuki SanadaI would point out that Japan's proposal at the Versailles Peace Conference on the principle of racial equality was rejected by delegates such as those from Britain and the United States
Hideki TojoI assure you that interest in Japanese culture in Russia is just as strong as interest in Russian culture in Japan.
Vladimir PutinSnowboarding's tough, because you've got to go to the mountains. For me, I love the skateboard season because I get to hangout at home and still be skating. I don't have to travel to Norway or Japan or these crazy places to be snowboarding.
Shaun WhiteI really liked the food in Japan. There is something so organized, neat, and methodical about it. They put a lot of care and quality into their cooking. I also love Mediterranean, New American, and Italian food, because the cuisines borrow influences from all over the world.
Sasha CohenWhen I was first writing about Japan, it was at the peak of the Bubble. Bubble popped, but they kept on going. Japanese street style feeds American iconics back into America in somewhat the way English rock once fed American blues back into America.
William GibsonHow can you have a world of today where India is not represented in the Security Council; Japan, the second contributor, is not there; the whole continent of Africa, soon to be 54 countries, don't have a single permanent seat; and Latin America is absent? It's not realistic.
Kofi AnnanNobody likes being criticised, particularly by players who will be in Disneyland this summer on their holidays rather than the World Cup in Japan
Phil ThompsonThe way I formed my studio and how I organize things actually came out of the model of the Japanese animation studio and the manga industry. The manga industry is gigantic in Japan.
Takashi MurakamiOf course, we will work towards that end. Of course, we will work to achieve this result. However, you have just mentioned the 1956 agreement, and one may recall that these negotiations were later terminated, in effect, on Japan's initiative.
Vladimir PutinI said to myself, 'the champion of the whole world can whoop every man in Russia, every man in America, every man in China, every man in Japan, every man in Europe - every man in the whole world'.It sounds big, didn't it? So I kept working until I did it.
Muhammad AliI'm sure that growing up in the Midwest played a role in my chronic escapism. In fact, before I lived in France, I lived in Japan, England, and Bulgaria. I was determined to experience other places and cultures, particularly because I had the perception that I'd been cut off from these experiences as a child.
Danielle TrussoniChopsticks box! I didn't know before and put them on the table and my Japan friends scolded me.
SeungriIf we could muster the same determination and sense of responsibility that saves a country like Japan - or a company like Xerox - then investing to save women and children who are dying in the developing world would be very good business.
Anne M. MulcahyAll of Japan once a year will get up on their rooftops, because that's the night that the shepherd boy from one side of the Milky Way gets to meet the weaver girl on the other side of the Milky Way. They all get up on their roofs and watch that night. So they long for 365 days and then on the 365th night, they see the result of that longing.
Robert BlyClimate change has always been sort of my main focus. I think also with [what happened in Fukushima, Japan] there's still a lot to think about in terms of what's coming down the pike into the world's oceans, too.
Rufus WainwrightI was an actor in Japan and I'm a regular on about three shows. I'm grateful for all of it. My personal activities like that help Big Bang as a whole as well.
SeungriThe new century demands new partnerships for peace and security. The United Nations plays a crucial role, with allies sharing burdens America might otherwise bear alone. America needs a strong and effective U.N. I want to work with this new Congress to pay our dues and our debts. We must continue to support security and stability in Europe and Asia - expanding NATO and defining its new missions, maintaining our alliance with Japan, with Korea, with our other Asian allies, and engaging China.
William J. ClintonIn fact, the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people.... The Japanese people are ... simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art.
Oscar WildeI want Japan to think and say that we are better off for JPMorgan having been here through thick and thin.
Jamie DimonWe made our debut in Japan about few years ago and when we went on a morning show there to promote our album, I did a brief interview in Japanese using simple expressions such as "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu." But one of the members of our group said, "Stay quiet if you can't speak Japanese! It's embarrassing!" So that's when I told myself that I'd show how good I am by studying Japanese hard.
SeungriIn space, you can't see the borders. It doesn't look like a map. We're all like kids fighting in a sandbox, on the political and human side of it. The International Space Station was built in orbit. Each piece hurtled into space at eight kilometres per second. From an engineering point of view, it's madness. It's also a feat of policy - Russia, the U.S., Germany and Japan working together. Do you realize what that means? These countries were sending nukes to each other a generation ago. Space does that. It gives us that amazing big picture.
David Saint-JacquesWhen I grew up, in Taiwan, the Korean War was seen as a good war, where America protected Asia. It was sort of an extension of World War II. And it was, of course, the peak of the Cold War. People in Taiwan were generally proAmerican. The Korean War made Japan. And then the Vietnam War made Taiwan. There is some truth to that.
Ang LeeIt is Japan's mission to be supreme in Asia, the South Seas and eventually the four corners of the world.
Sadao ArakiI attended a big human space flight conference in Beijing and I was going as myself. And really, there weren't any NASA astronauts there, I was the only so-called American Astronaut there. We had astronauts from most of the other countries, certainly from Russia, from France, from Japan, several other countries, but it was a little bit odd because here we are at an international gathering of a lot of astronauts and I'm talking about somewhere upwards of 30 or so astronauts, and I'm the only American. And I wasn't even there in an official capacity.
Leroy ChiaoWe're on the brink of a world in which the wealthiest nations, from Canada to Norway to Japan, can barely project meaningful force to their own borders while the nickel 'n' dime basket-cases go nuclear.
Mark SteynThe stagnation of the Japanese economy in the past 20 years is eloquent testimony to the fact that government usually gets it wrong. Sometimes it makes the wrong decision because it fails to anticipate the market (as Japan did when it downplayed laptop computers and stressed mainframes).
Dick MorrisWe have listened here to the delegates who have recalled the terrible human suffering, and the great material destruction of the late war in the Pacific. It is with feelings of sorrow that we recall the part played in that catastrophic human experience by the old Japan.
Shigeru YoshidaIn Japan they're definitely more over the top. They had four Boogie stacks and 20 guitars. But otherwise it's pretty much the same thing, except there's a translator. It's really nice.
John Petrucci