True Beauty Is Something That Attacks, Overpowers,

Better To Be Caught In Sudden, Complete Catastrophe Than To Be Gnawed By The Cancer Of Imagination.

Glory, As Anyone Knows, Is Bitter Stuff.

Was I Ignorant, Then, When I Was Seventeen? I Think Not. I Knew Everything. A Quarter-century's Experience Of Life Since Then Has Added Nothing To What I Knew. The One Difference Is That At Seventeen I Had No 'realism'.

As Usual, It Occurred To Me That Words Were The Only Thing That Could Possibly Save Me From This Situation. This Was A Characteristic Misunderstanding On My Part. When Action Was Needed, I Was Absorbed In Words; For Words Proceeded With Such Difficulty From My Mouth That I Was Intent On Them And Forgot All About Action. It Seemed To Me That Actions, Which Are Dazzling, Varied Things, Must Always Be Accompanied By Equally Dazzling And Equally Varied Words.

…the Samurai Ethic Is A Political Science Of The Heart, Designed To Control Such Discouragement And Fatigue In Order To Avoid Showing Them To Others. It Was Thought More Important To Look Healthy Than To Be Healthy, And More Important To Seem Bold And Daring Than To Be So. This View Of Morality, Since It Is Physiologically Based On The Special Vanity Peculiar To Men, Is Perhaps The Supreme Male View Of Morality.