"While he felt pity for this obstinate tenacity characteristic of orphans, he was aware of a void deep within their stubborn hearts. They seemed to him doomed to yearn desperately for that which they could not have, for the parental love with which they were never blessed," The Art of War, p. 63.

"You seem to be under the misconception that if you perform one brave deed, that alone makes you a samurai. Well it doesn't! you let that one act of loyalty convince you of your righteousness. The more convinced you became, the more harm you caused yourself and everyone else," The Old Cryptomeria Tree, p. 81.

"Instead, at each school he had experienced disappointment. Though he always won his bouts, he was unable to decide whether that was because he was good or his opponents were bad," Encounter and Retreat, p. 130.

"At Fushimi alone, nearly a thousand laborers...