His Emotion Evident In The Glitter Of

Young People Get The Foolish Idea That What Is New For Them Must Be New For Everybody Else Too. No Matter How Unconventional They Get, They're Just Repeating What Others Before Them Have Done.

We Tend To Suffer From The Illusion That We Are Capable Of Dying For A Belief Or Theory. What Hagakure Is Insisting Is That Even In Merciless Death, A Futile Death That Knows Neither Flower Nor Fruit Has Dignity As The Death Of A Human Being. If We Value So Highly The Dignity Of Life, How Can We Not Also Value The Dignity Of Death? No Death May Be Called Futile.

Again And Again, The Cicada's Untiring Cry Pierced The Sultry Summer Air Like A Needle At Work On Thick Cotton Cloth.

Dreams, Memories, The Sacred--they Are All Alike In That They Are Beyond Our Grasp. Once We Are Even Marginally Separated From What We Can Touch, The Object Is Sanctified; It Acquires The Beauty Of The Unattainable, The Quality Of The Miraculous. Everything, Really, Has This Quality Of Sacredness, But We Can Desecrate It At A Touch. How Strange Man Is! His Touch Defiles And Yet He Contains The Source Of Miracles.

A Samurai Is A Total Human Being, Whereas A Man Who Is Completely Absorbed In His Technical Skill Has Degenerated Into A ‘function’, One Cog In A Machine.