Philosophy Quotes

"All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again."

- Ecclesiastes 1:7

"There is only one theory about angling in which I have perfect confidence, and this is that the two words, least appropriate to any statement, about it, are the words 'always' and 'never.'"

- Lord Edward Grey

"Poets talk about "spots of time", but it is really the fishermen who experience eternity compressed into a moment. No one can tell what a spot of time is until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone."

- Norman Mclean

"Scholars have long known that fishing eventually turns men into philosophers. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to buy decent tackle on a philosopher's salary."

- Patrick McManus

"He told us about Christ's disciples being fisherman, and we were left to assume...that all great fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fisherman and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman."

- Norman Maclean

"To him, all good things—trout as well as eternal salvation—come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy."

- Norman Maclean

"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters."

- Norman Maclean

"Beginners may ask why one fishes if he is to release his catch. They fail to see that the live trout, sucking in the fly and fighting the rod is the entire point to our sport. Dead trout are just so much lifeless meat."

- Ernest G. Schwiebert, Jr.

"...buying a fly rod in the average city store, that is, joining it up and safely waggling it a bit, is much like seeing a woman's arm protruding from a car window: all one can readily be sure of is that the window is open."

- Anatomy of a Fisherman by Robert Traver

"Why does a salmon rise? Why does a small boy cross the street just to kick a tin can?"

- Lee Wulff, The Atlantic Salmon

"Spiritual development is not an accomplishment but a way of life. It is an orientation that brings its own rewards, and what is important is the direction of one’s motives."

- David R. Hawkins

"There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading to the same place, so it doesn’t matter which path you take. The only person wasting time is the one who runs around the mountain, telling everyone that his or her path is wrong."

- Hindu proverb

"Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it."

- Charles Caleb Colton

"Time does not pass, it continues."

- Marty Rubin

"The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death."

- Isaac Bashevis Singer

"We are raised in a culture that values expertise over exploration."

- Nina Wise

"To be, or not to be, that is the question."

- William Shakespeare

"A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on."

- John F. Kennedy

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

- William Shakespeare

"Karate has no philosophy. Some people think that the tradition of Karate came from Buddhism and Karate has a connection with the absolute, space and universe, but I don’t believe in that. My philosophy is to knock my opponent out, due to the use of only one technique. One finishing blow!"

- Mikio Yahara

"A kata is not fixed or immoveable. Like water, it’s ever changing and fits itself to the shape of the vessel containing it. However, kata are not some kind of beautiful competitive dance, but a grand martial art of self-defense – which determines life and death."

- Kenwa Mabuni

"Recently, some Karate men have used funny and strange sounding names for their own styles of Karate. A Karate man of this kind does not have a real understanding or knowledge of the orthodox Karate or he has no confidence in his ability as a Karate man. He uses these funny sounding names for his own style of Karate as an evasive answer when he has a hard time demonstrating a very difficult technique or even an incomplete one. […] Karate does not have any one style. Karate molds an individual to be the only object of defense or offense and, through this, it teaches the fundamental concept of self-protection."

- Kanken Toyama

"Spirit first, technique second."

- Gichin Funakoshi

"The techniques of kata have their limits and were never intended to be used against an opponent in an arena or on a battlefield."

- Choki Motobu

"There is no place in contemporary Karate for different schools. Some instructors, I know, claim to have invented new and unusual kata, and so they arrogate to themselves the right to be called founders of “schools”. Indeed, I have heard myself and my colleagues referred to as the Shotokan school, but I strongly object to this attempt at classification. My belief is that all these “schools” should be amalgamated into one, so that Karate may orderly progress into man’s future."

- Gichin Funakoshi

"Fighting – think of it as you need 100 answers to one question."

- Damien Trainor

"True martial arts is universal, simple, and practical. Anything else is too complex to be used in combat."

- Soke Behzad Ahmadi

"If you think only of hitting, springing, striking, or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him."

- Miyamoto Musashi

"Of old the expert in battle would first make himself invincible and then wait for his enemy to expose his vulnerability."

- Sun Tzu

"Any martial art without proper training of the mind turns into beastly behavior."

- Shoshin Nagamine