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A stroke of the sword that does not hit its target is the sword stroke of death; you reach over it to strike the winning blow. Your adversary's initiative having missed its mark, you turn the tables around and get the jump on your adversary.

— Yagyū Munenori A Hereditary Book on the Art of War (1632)

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More quotes by Yagyū Munenori

It is easy to kill someone with a slash of a sword. It is hard to be impossible for others to cut down.

Behold the Second Horseman (2005)

Conquering evil, not the opponent, is the essence of swordsmanship.

Behold the Second Horseman (2005)

There may be a hundred stances and sword positions, but you win with just one.

A Hereditary Book on the Art of War (1632)

See first with your mind, then with your eyes, and finally with your body.

It is bias to think that the art of war is just for killing people. It is not to kill people, it is to kill evil. It is a stratagem to give life to many people by killing the evil of one person.

The Japanese Art of War (1991)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Yagyū Munenori (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.