The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

Youth on horseback has passed. The world is at peace and white hairs multiply. With what remains of life that heaven permits, how can I not enjoy it?

-- The 'One-Eyed Dragon' of northern Japan who carved

人の意見を聞いてから出る知恵は、本当の知恵ではない。

-- The peasant who became ruler of all Japan

児孫のために美田を買わず。

-- The charismatic giant who led Japan's Meiji Restoration through force of personality and moral authority

Let the world say what it will about me. Only I know what I must do.

-- The visionary who brokered the alliance that overthrew Japan's feudal government and launched the country into modernity

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

-- Virginia Woolf

Within the motive for crime lies society's contradiction.

-- Seicho Matsumoto