Wisdom From The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
The following are pieces of wisdom as drawn from The Book of Five Rings, a work written by Miyamoto Musashi:
- Water adopts the shape of its receptacle, it is sometimes a trickle and sometimes a wild sea.
- What is big is easy to perceive: what is small is difficult to perceive. In short, it is difficult for large numbers of men to change position, so their movements can be easily predicted. An individual can easily change his mind, so his movements are difficult to predict. You must appreciate this.
- From one thing, know ten thousand things.
- Both in fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. Meet the situation without tenseness yet not recklessly, your spirit settled yet unbiased. Even when your spirit is calm do not let your body relax, and when your body is relaxed do not let your spirit slacken. Do not let your spirit be influenced by your body, or your body be influenced by your spirit. Be neither insufficiently spirited nor over spirited. An elevated spirit is weak and a low spirit is weak. Do not let the enemy see your spirit.
- … the way to understanding is through experience,