The Thin Red Line

„Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Know that I was, too. Do you imagine your suffering will be any less because you loved goodness and truth?”

„There’s not some other world out there where everything’s gonna be okay. There’s just this one, just this rock.”

„We were a family. How’d it break up and come apart, so that now we’re turned against each other? Each standing in the other’s light. How’d we lose that good that was given us? Let it slip away. Scattered it, careless. What’s keepin’ us from reaching out, touching the glory?”

„John, I’m convinced that the Japanese position can be broken right now. All we have to do is keep going and we’ll have this hill. We’ll have this hill by sundown! You see the spirit in these men? Do you see the new spirit? Well, I want to take advantage of that before something happens to sap their strength. To have this battalion relieved in a defeat, or even to have it reinforced by troops from a reserve regiment, if we were stalled before reaching the top, well, Jesus Christ, that’s just a hell of a lot more than I could stand! I’ve waited all my life for this. I’ve worked, slaved, eaten untold buckets of shit to have this opportunity and I don’t intend to give it up now.”

(The Thin Red Line)

Meet Joe Black

 

„Careful Bill, you’ll give yourself a heart attack and ruin my vacation.”

„When I introduce you, and I tell them who you are, I don’t think anyone will stay for dinner.”

„I loved Susan from the moment she was born, and I love her now and every minute in between. And what I dream of is a man who will discover her, and that she will discover a man who will love her, who is worthy of her, who is of this world, this time and has the grace, compassion, and fortitude to walk beside her as she makes her way through this beautiful thing called life.”

„Love is passion, obsession, someone you can’t live without. If you don’t start with that, what are you going to end up with? Fall head over heels. I say find someone you can love like crazy and who’ll love you the same way back. And how do you find him? Forget your head and listen to your heart. I’m not hearing any heart. Run the risk, if you get hurt, you’ll come back. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love – well, you haven’t lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.”

(Meet Joe Black)

Ghost Dog

„If a warrior’s head were to be suddenly cut off, he should still be able to perform one more action with certainty.”

„The Way of the Samurai is found in death. Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day, when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears, and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day, without fail, one should consider himself as dead. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai.”

„It is bad when one thing becomes two. One should not look for anything else in the Way of the Samurai. It is the same for anything that is called a Way. If one understands things in this manner, he should be able to hear about all ways and be more and more in accord with his own.”

„If one were to say in a word what the condition of being a samurai is, its basis lies first in seriously devoting one’s body and soul to his master.”

„It is a good viewpoint to see the world as a dream. When you have something like a nightmare, you will wake up and tell yourself that it was only a dream. It is said that the world we live in is not a bit different from this.”

„Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige’s wall, there was this one: „Matters of great concern should be treated lightly.” Master Ittei commented, „Matters of small concern should be treated seriously.”

„Even if one’s head were to be suddenly cut off, he should be able to do one more action with certainty. With martial valor, if one becomes like a revengeful ghost and shows great determination, though his head is cut off, he should not die.”

„In the words of the ancients, one should make his decision within the space of seven breaths. It is a matter of being determined and having the spirit to break through to the other side.”

„There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.”

„Our bodies are given life from the midst of nothingness. Existing where there is nothing is the meaning of the phrase, „form is emptiness.” That all things are provided for by nothingness is the meaning of the phrase, „Emptiness is form.” One should not think that these are two separate things.”

„When one has made a decision to kill a person, even if it will be very difficult to succeed by advancing straight ahead, it will not do to think about doing it in a long, roundabout way. One’s heart may slacken, he may miss his chance, and by and large there will be no success. The Way of the Samurai is one of immediacy, and it is best to dash in headlong.”

„It is said that what is called the Spirit of an Age is something to which one cannot return. That this spirit gradually dissipates is due to the world’s coming to an end. In the same way, a single year does not have just spring or summer. A single day, too, is the same. For this reason, although one would like to change today’s world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation.”

(Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai)