The Period Of Childhood Is A Stage

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.

What Transforms This World Is - Knowledge. Do You See What I Mean? Nothing Else Can Change Anything In This World. Knowledge Alone Is Capable Of Transforming The World, While At The Same Time Leaving It Exactly As It Is. When You Look At The World With Knowledge, You Realize That Things Are Unchangeable And At The Same Time Are Constantly Being Transformed.

I Am One Who Has Always Been Interested Only In The Edges Of The Body And The Spirit, The Outlying Regions Of The Body And The Outlying Regions Of The Spirit. The Depths Hold No Interest For Me; I Leave Them To Others, For They Are Shallow, Commonplace. What Is There, Then, At The Outer Most Edge? Nothing, Perhaps, Save A Few Ribbons, Dangling Down Into The Void.

Perfect Purity Is Possible If You Turn Your Life Into A Line Of Poetry Written With A Splash Of Blood.

We Had Stretched Out Our Arms To Each Other And Supported Something In Our Joined Hands, But This Thing We Were Holding Was Like A Sort Of Gas That Exists When You Believe In Its Existence And Disappears When You Doubt. The Task Of Supporting It Seems Simple At First Glance, But Actually Requires An Ultimate Refinement Of Calculation And A Consummate Skill.