Soyen Shaku

Have the fearless attitude of a hero and the loving heart of a child.

Upon retiring, sleep as if you had entered your last sleep. Upon awakening, leave your bed behind you instantly as if you had cast away a pair of old shoes.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor.

All personal achievement starts in the mind of the individual. Your personal achievement starts in your mind. The first step is to know exactly what your problem, goal or desire is.

Necessity, who is the mother of invention.

We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.

You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.

You always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience!

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

Men are what their mothers made them.

But most of us are apt to settle within ourselves that the man who blocks our way is odious, and not to mind causing him a little of the disgust which his personality excites in ourselves.

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.

Love is only one of many passions.