Sublime

Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent, and always assist him to save face. Put yourself in his shoes—so as to see things through his eyes. Avoid self-righteousness like the devil—nothing is so self-blinding.

Each fighter, to become great, he said, needs to have someone better that they can learn from, someone lesser who they can teach, and someone equal that they can challenge themselves against.

“When a man can control his life, his physical needs, his lower self,” Muhammad Ali would later say, “he elevates himself.”

‘The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.’

The main source of strength is the heart. A person whose heart is steadfast will never be afraid of anyone or anything. He can achieve remarkable feats and win fierce battles simply through the strength of a heart which fears nothing and does not run from the battle lines. This applies literally to serving God. Understand this well (249).

He won’t get anywhere by not submitting anything.

Hiroo Onoda returned to Japan in 1974 and became a kind of celebrity in his home country.

Soon after the war, Japan’s most assertive novelist, Yukio Mishima, published a book whose title—Confessions of a Mask—was pure Wilde, as were its sentiments: “It is precisely what people regard as my true self that is a masquerade.”