Top 38 Quotes & Sayings by Eiji Yoshikawa

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Japanese novelist Eiji Yoshikawa.

Last updated on December 25, 2024.

Eiji Yoshikawa was a Japanese historical novelist. Among his best-known novels are revisions of older classics. He was mainly influenced by classics such as The Tale of the Heike, Tale of Genji, Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, many of which he retold in his own style. As an example, Yoshikawa took up Taiko's original manuscript in 15 volumes to retell it in a more accessible tone and reduce it to only two volumes. His other books also serve similar purposes and, although most of his novels are not original works, he created a huge amount of work and a renewed interest in the past. He was awarded the Cultural Order of Merit in 1960, the Order of the Sacred Treasure and the Mainichi Art Award just before his death from cancer in 1962. He is cited as one of the best historical novelists in Japan. The complete translation of his work, in the west, is only available in Portuguese

Japanese - Novelist | August 11, 1892 - September 7, 1962

Source: Wikipedia

it is easy to surpass a predecessor, but difficult to avoid being surpassed by a successor.

Eiji Yoshikawa

Don't yield! Keep up your courage! The same sun looks down on all of us!

Eiji Yoshikawa

Every act is an expression of one's self.

Eiji Yoshikawa

Not only must a warrior be strong with his bow, but he must have a heart full of pity for all living creatures.

Eiji Yoshikawa

The line between life and death is not thicker than an eyelid.

Eiji Yoshikawa

If a man wanted to put the entire universe in his breast, he couldn't do it with his chest stuck out.

Eiji Yoshikawa

Hold on to your life and make it honest and brave.

Eiji Yoshikawa

The truth of the scholar, alone in his study, does not always accord with what the world at large considers to be true.

Eiji Yoshikawa

It's interesting, isn't it? Being in the world.

Eiji Yoshikawa

A wise man who cultivates wisdom may sometimes drown in it.

Eiji Yoshikawa

...you're going to find people from all over the country, everyone hungry for money and position. You won't make a name for yourself just doing what the next man does. You'll have to distinguish yourself in some way.

Eiji Yoshikawa

There's not much benefit in attacking an empty house.

Eiji Yoshikawa

See, see how the sun has moved onward while we talked. Nothing can stop it in its course. Prayers cannot halt the revolving of nature. It is the same with human life. Victory and defeat are one in the vast stream of life. Victory is the beginning of defeat, and who can rest safely in victory? Impermanence is the nature of all things of this world. Even you will find your ill fortunes too will change. It is easy to understand the impatience of the old, whose days are numbered, but why should you young ones fret when the future is yours?

Eiji Yoshikawa

People tend to be put off by the idea of selling sex, but if you spend a winter's night with one of them and talk with her about her family and so on, you're likely to find she's just like any other woman.

Eiji Yoshikawa

Beyond the shadow of a doubt, food was more important than a woman's suffering.

Eiji Yoshikawa

Enemies were teachers in disguise.

Eiji Yoshikawa

I want to dedicate myself to training and discipline. I want to spend every moment of every day working to improve myself.

Eiji Yoshikawa

I want to lead an important life. I want to do it because I was born a human being.

Eiji Yoshikawa

Oh, you crows! Feast away! What a spread! Soup straight from the eye sockets! And thick red sake! But don't have too much Or you'll surely get drunk.

Eiji Yoshikawa

It does happen, of course, that the priesthood has been on bad terms with womankind for some three thousand years. You see, Buddhism teaches that women are evil. Fiends. Messengers of hell. I've spent years immersed in the scriptures, so it's no accident that you and I fight all the time.

Eiji Yoshikawa

It's no good to want to win still more when you have already won.

Eiji Yoshikawa

The summit is believed to be the object of the climb. But its true object--the joy of living--is not in the peak itself, but in the adversities encountered on the way up.

Eiji Yoshikawa

The world is a stone wall ... and they have put the stones so close together that there is not a single crack through which one may enter.

Eiji Yoshikawa

Monks transgress the Laws of the Buddha, stir up the common people, store wealth and weapons, and spread rumors; under the guise of religion, they are nothing more than self-serving agitators.

Eiji Yoshikawa

Danger was the grindstone on which the swordsman whetted his spirit. Enemies were teachers in disguise.

Eiji Yoshikawa

It is easy to crush an enemy outside oneself but impossible to defeat an enemy within.

Eiji Yoshikawa

The world is always full of the sound of waves. The little fishes, abandoning themselves to the waves, dance and sing and play, but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows its depth?

Eiji Yoshikawa

To Kiyomori each stall, each soul here seemed borne under by the crushing weight of the world; everyone here was a pitiful weed, trodden underfoot -- a conglomeration of human lives putting down roots in this slime, living and letting live in the struggle to survive; and he was stirred by the fearful and magnificent courage communicated by the scene.

Eiji Yoshikawa

Sincerity, even if it speaks with a stutter, will sound eloquent when inspired.

Eiji Yoshikawa

Love was like a toothache.

Eiji Yoshikawa

When a woman dislikes the man who is courting her, she parries him cleverly, like a willow in the wind.

Eiji Yoshikawa

Fighting isn't all there is to the Art of War. The men who think that way, and are satisfied to have food to eat and a place to sleep, are mere vagabonds. A serious student is much more concerned with training his mind and disciplining his spirit than with developing martial skills.

Eiji Yoshikawa

The greatest happiness of life was to stand at the difficult border between success and failure.

Eiji Yoshikawa

Think what you like. There are people who die by remaining alive and others who gain life by dying.

Eiji Yoshikawa

To the courtiers flushed with wine, life was pleasure, and pleasure life.

Eiji Yoshikawa

Great character is forged through hardships.

Eiji Yoshikawa

I wouldn't say Musashi is ordinary. But he is. That's what's extraordinary about him. He is not content to rely on whatever natural gifts he may have. Knowing he is ordinary, he is constantly trying to improve himself. No one appreciates the agonizing effort he's had to make. Now that his years of training have yielded such spectacular results, everybody's talking about his 'God-given talent.' That's how men who don't try very hard comfort themselves.

Eiji Yoshikawa

The bitter winds in February were sometimes called the First East Winds, but the longing for spring somehow made them seem more piercing.

Eiji Yoshikawa