Quotations for Martial Artists Compiled by John David Moore
I know that I’m never as good or bad as any single performance. I’ve never believed my critics or my worshippers, and I’ve always been able to leave the game at the arena.
—Charles Barkley
There are only two options regarding commitment. You’re either IN or you’re OUT. There’s no such thing as life in-between.
—Pat Riley
Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.
—Lou Brock
Start living now. Stop saving the good china for that special occasion. Stop withholding your love until that special person materializes. Every day you are alive is a special occasion. Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God.
—Mary Manin Morrissey
Wherever you go, go with all your heart.
—Confucius
Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.
—Buddha
The warrior’s intention should be simply to grasp his sword and to die.
—Kiyomasa Kato
Fiddling with this and that technique is of no avail. Simply act decisively without reserve!
—Ueshiba, Morihei
Ain’t no chance if you don’t take it.
—Guy Clark
You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself.
—Galileo
Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to go to his class.
—Choi, Hong Hi
True teaching, then, is not that which gives knowledge, but that which stimulates pupils to gain it.
—Milton Gregory
It’s not just self defense, it’s about…self control, body discipline, and mind discipline…and breath techniques. It involves yoga. It involves meditation. It’s an art, not a sport.
—Elvis Presley.
He turned his own weapons upon himself, doing battle with his negative emotions.
—H.H. The Dalai Lama, speaking about Shantideva
The path of the Warrior is lifelong, and mastery is often simply staying on the path.
—Richard Strozzi Heckler
Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
—Robert F. Kennedy
Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.
—William A. Ward
The Way of a Warrior is based on humanity, love, and sincerity; the heart of martial valor is true bravery, wisdom, love, and friendship.
Emphasis on the physical aspects of warriorship is futile, for the power of the body is always limited.
—Ueshiba, Morihei
Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself.
Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but
instantly set about remedying them—every day begin the task anew.
—Saint Francis de Sales
The man who would be a warrior considers it his most basic intention to keep death always in mind, day and night, from the time he first picks up his chopsticks in celebrating his morning meal on New Year’s Day to the evening of the last day of the year. When one constantly keeps death in mind, both loyalty and filial piety are realized, myriad evils and disasters are avoided, one is without illness and mishap, and lives out a long life. In addition, even his character is improved. Such are the many benefits of this act.
—Daidoji Yuzan
You have no control over what the other guy does. You only have control over what you do.
—A J Kitt
Each of us is an impregnable fortress that can be laid waste only from within.
—Timothy J. Flynn
First see to it that you, yourself, are all right, then think of defeating an opponent.
—The Way of the Spear
Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky.
Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It’s the sure footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life.
—Ann Landers
Be grateful even for hardship, setbacks, and bad people. Dealing with such obstacles is an essential part of training in Aikido.
—Ueshiba, Morihei
This is the law:
There is no possible victory in defense, The Sword is more important than the shield, And skill is more important than either, The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental.
—John Steinbeck
Even though surrounded by several enemies set to attack, fight with the thought that they are but one.
—Ueshiba, Morihei
A warrior may choose pacifism. Others are condemned to it.
—Anonymous
When pure knuckles meet pure flesh, that’s pure Karate, no matter who executes it or whatever style is involved.
—Ed Parker
Unarmed hand-to-hand fighting does not change through the ages; only the name changes, and it has only one rule: do it first, do it fast, do it dirtiest.
—Robert A. Heinlein
You ask, What is our policy? I will say; “It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.” You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.
—Winston Churchill
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
—Theodore Roosevelt
A winner never whines.
—Paul Brown
If you set a goal for yourself and are able to achieve it, you have won your race. Your goal can be to come in first, to improve your performance, or just finish the race—it’s up to you.
—Dave Scott
One finds life through conquering the fear of death within one’s mind.
Empty the mind of all forms of attachment, make a go-for-broke
charge and conquer the opponent with one decisive slash.
—Togo Shigekata.
To practice Zen or the Martial Arts, you must live intensely, whole-heartedly, without reserve—as if you might die in the next instant.
—Taisen Deshimaru
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.
—Amelia Earhart
Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.
—Eddie Rickenbacker
You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.
—Jerry Garcia
You don’t have to hold a position to be a leader.
—Anthony J. D’Angelo
Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call genius.
—Alexander Hamilton
I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
—Albert Einstein
So long as there is breath in me, that long will I persist. For now I know one of the greatest principles of success; If I persist long enough I will win.
—Og Mandino
If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
—Vincent Van Gogh
A man of knowledge chooses a path with a heart and follows it and then he looks and rejoices and laughs and then he sees and knows. He knows that his life will be over altogether too soon. He knows that he as well as everybody else is not going anywhere. He knows because he sees.
A man of knowledge endeavors and sweats and puffs and if one looks at him he is just like any ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under control.
—don Juan via Carlos Castenada
It’s what you learn after you know everything that counts.
—John Wooden
He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another’s mishap.
—Publilius Cyrus
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson