Nyogen Senzaki

Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while… you don’t do things right once in a while… you do them right all the time. Winning is habit.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

I have to live for others and not for myself: that’s middle-class morality.

As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!

Always do what you are afraid to do.

In the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine.

I would live to study, and not study to live.

No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.

A jest often decides matters of importance more effectual and happily than seriousness.

If you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

Opportunity makes a thief.

An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.