Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
One may risk physical safety but must never compromise integrity.
In plain terms
Sacrifice your body if needed, but never lose your honor.
What can you take from it?
Prioritize ethical integrity over physical survival.

Where it applies

  • moral dilemmas
  • crisis decisions
  • personal codes

Putting it to work

  • upholding values under pressure
  • ethical leadership

Questions to consider

  • What is the line between sacrifice and foolishness?

Another view

Physical safety is sometimes prerequisite to upholding honor.

More from Miyamoto Musashi

  1. Respect the gods, without relying on their help.

    Permalink to quote #90
  2. Think lightly of yourself and think deeply of the world.

    Permalink to quote #89
  3. Until you realise the true Way, whether in Buddhism or in common sense, you may think that things are correct and in order. However, if we look at things objec…

    Permalink to quote #88

Related quotes

  1. You have committed one of the greatest stupidities - for yourself and for me! Your association with an anti-Semitic chief expresses a foreignness to my whole w…

    Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich Nietzsche quote #6
  2. Yet this inconstancy is such As you too shall adore; I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more.

    Richard LovelaceRichard Lovelace quote #6
  3. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them …

    Davy CrockettDavy Crockett quote #10