Bushido Quotes

Bushido refers not only to martial rectitude but personal rectitude. We understand that in serving each other we serve our own interests. In serving our world, our world serves us. Allowing us to live in harmony with it.

Bushido as an independent code of ethics may vanish, but its power will not perish from the earth; its schools of martial prowess or civic honor may be demolished, but its light and its glory will long survive their ruins. Like its symbolic flower, after it is blown to the four winds, it will still bless mankind with the perfume with which it will enrich life.

A truly brave man is ever serene; he is never taken by surprise; nothing ruffles the equanimity of his spirit. In the heat of battle he remains cool; in the midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind. Earthquakes do not shake him, he laughs at storms. We admire him as truly great, who, in the menacing presence of danger or death, retains his self-possession; who, for instance, can compose a poem under impending peril or hum a strain in the face of death. Such indulgence betraying no tremor in the writing or in the voice, is taken as an infallible index of a large nature—of what we call a capacious mind (Yoyū), which, far from being pressed or crowded, has always room for something more.

Being a samurai is all about selfless service and if the lord abuses the servant, it is no longer a situation of service; it becomes the situation of a victim. It is never acceptable for a samurai to be a victim. It is never acceptable to allow a lord to abuse you or rob you of your dignity. In such a situation, it is acceptable to walk away.

Alexei Maxim Russell

There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle... Perhaps...

Jean-Pierre Melville

The Samurai lived by a code of honor, not unlike the code that you live by. It’s called the Bushido. It was never written down; was always something the Samurai knew, and it was handed down from one warrior to another. One of the tenets of the code is about justice. Not the pounding of a gavel on the bench of some judge who’s been appointed to pass judgment on people by some politician. No, malaka, this concept of justice is what you feel in your bones: to die when it is right and to strike when it is right.

. . . for any worthwhile martial arts skill to be pragmatic, it has to be done live, otherwise it is of limited or no use in actual combat

Soke Behzad Ahmadi

Did not Socrates, all the while he unflinchingly refused to concede one iota of loyalty to his daemon, obey with equal fidelity and equanimity the command of his earthly master, the State? His conscience he followed, alive; his country he served, dying. Alack the day when a state grows so powerful as to demand of its citizens the dictates of their consciences!

Karate is not about techniques and their execution, but about boldness, integrity and fight for justice and common good

Soke Behzad Ahmadi

The best fighter is never angry.

Lao Tzu

A Martial Artist may become A professional fighter but not every Fighter is capable of becoming A martial artist. Martial Arts are about restoration of physical and spiritual balance and fluidity; they are about observing restraints and 'setting example'. Every practice session is A reminder of the play of opposites (yin and yang), . . . .

Soke Behzad Ahmadi

The essence of warrior traits are demonstrated by : integrity with self, and honesty with others

Soke Behzad Ahmadi

. . . the sole aim of Okinawa Karate is to teach A person to handle violence and violent individuals; whether it is tactile, mental or spiritual

Soke Behzad Ahmadi

The warrior guided by the spirit serves humanity, the warrior without, serves the ego

Soke Behzad Ahmadi

True Martial Arts is universal, simple and practical. Anything else is too complex to be used in combat.

Soke Behzad Ahmadi

The Hand (Kara-Te) is the cutting edge of the Mind

Soke Behzad Ahmadi

Read Hearn, the most eloquent and truthful interpreter of the Japanese mind, and you see the working of that mind to be an example of the working of Bushido.

A karate practitioner should possess two things : wicked hands, and Buddha's heart

Soke Behzad Ahmadi

On Ryukyu islands, the expert Kara-te practitioners, used their skills to subdue, control and generally teach bullies A lesson, rather than severely injure or kill their attackers. They knew full well the consequences of their actions and the trail of blood and retribution that would ensue

Soke Behzad Ahmadi

Bushido is realized in the presence of death. This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. There is no other reasoning.

Tsunetomo Yamamoto

Never respond to an angry person with a fiery comeback, even if he deserves it...Don't allow his anger to become your anger.