Re: Your Favorite Quotes: Quotable Quotes! (Post it here)
Um, i don't know if my quote is appropriate for this thread because it really long, but i just felt the need to share since it is one of my very favorite passages. XD
"When one has made the decision to kill a person, even if it will be very difficult by advancing straight ahead, it will not do to go about it in a long roundabout way. One's heart may slacken, he may miss his chance, and by and large there will be no success. The Way of the Samurai is one of immediacy, and it is best to dash in headlong.
When a certain man was going to the sutra readings at the Jissoin in Kawakami, one of his pages got drunk on the ferryboat and began to pester one of the sailors. When they landed on the other side, as the page had drawn his sword, the sailor took a pole and struck him in the head. At that time the other sailors all ran up together carrying oars and were at the point of striking the page down. However, as the master passed by with an air of not knowing what was happening, one of the other pages ran back and appologized to the sailors. Then, pacifying his comrade, he acompanied him home. That night the page that had been drunk learned that his sword was being taken away from him.
Now, first of all, it was an insufficiency on the master's part not to have reproved and pacified the drunken page while they were on the boat. Furthermore, even though his page had acted unreasonably, after he had been struck on the head there was no reason for an appology. The master should have approached the sailor and the drunken page in an appologetic manner and cut them both down. Certanly he was a spiritless master."
~Yamamoto Tsunetomo (translated by William Scott Willson)
Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
*gives ossu to each*