'To hate destructiveness, one must hate life as well: only death is an image of undistorted life... organic life is an illness peculiar to our unlovely planet.'

'Those who cannot help ought also not advise: in an order where every mousehole has been plugged, mere advice exactly equals condemnation.'

'To say 'we' and mean 'I' is one of the most recondite insults.'

'Thinking no longer means anymore than checking at each moment whether one can indeed think.'

The great fault of all ethics hitherto has been that they believed themselves to have to deal only with the relations of man to man. In reality, however, the q…

We tend to suffer from the illusion that we are capable of dying for a belief or theory. What Hagakure is insisting is that even in merciless death, a futile d…

Any religion or philosophy which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion or philosophy.