理由も分らずに押付けられたものを大人しく受取って、理由も分らずに生きて行くのが、我々生きもののさだめだ。

The cowardly fear of exposing one's lack of talent, and the terror that even after grinding effort, one's innate insufficiency might become all the more apparent.

A cowardly pride and an arrogant sense of shame.

There is no substitute for hard work.

-- Thomas Edison

I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

-- Thomas Edison

Never flatter others. Never desire wealth and status.

-- Toyotomi Hideyoshi's chief strategist and the architect of his greatest victories

一生懸命だと知恵が出る、中途半端だと愚痴が出る、いい加減だと言い訳が出る。

-- The 'Tiger of Kai' who transformed his landlocked mountain domain into one of Sengoku Japan's most formidable military powers

唯才是挙、吾得而用之。

-- The dominant warlord of China's Three Kingdoms era

臣事項王、官不過郎中、位不過執戟。言不聴、画不用、故倍楚而帰漢。

-- The greatest military mind of early imperial China, whose campaigns established the Han dynasty (c. 231-196 BCE). Han Xin's tactical innovations — including the legendary 'battle with backs to the river' — demonstrated that battlefield psychology and terrain exploitation could overcome any numerical disadvantage. His reward