Funakoshi Karate Quotes & Sayings

Once a kata has been learned, it must be practised repeatedly until it can be applied in an emergency, for knowledge of just the sequence of a kata in karate is useless. — Gichin Funakoshi

Karate is a defensive art from beginning to end. — Gichin Funakoshi

The correct understanding of Karate and its proper use is Karate-do. One who truly trains in this do [way] and actually understands Karate-do is never easily drawn into a fight. — Gichin Funakoshi

There is no first strike in Karate. — Gichin Funakoshi

Being liked for the way you looked is worse than not being liked at all. — Amanda Hocking

True karate is this: that in daily life one's mind and body be trained and developed in a spirit of humility, and that in critical times, one be devoted utterly to the cause of justice. — Gichin Funakoshi

Karate-do begins with courtesy and ends with rei. — Gichin Funakoshi

You may train for a long time, but if you merely move your hands and feet and jump up and down like a puppet, learning karate is not very different from learning a dance. You will never have reached the heart of the matter; you will have failed to grasp the quintessence of karate-do. — Gichin Funakoshi

Karate begins and ends with courtesy. — Gichin Funakoshi

Hoping to see karate included in the universal physical education taught in our public schools, I set about revising the kata so as to make them as simple as possible. Times change, the world changes, and obviously the martial arts must change too. The karate that high school students practice today is not the same karate that was practiced even as recently as ten years ago [this book was written in 1956], and it is a long way indeed from the karate I learned when I was a child in Okinawa. — Gichin Funakoshi

Since karate is a martial art, you must practice with the utmost seriousness from the very beginning. — Gichin Funakoshi

No matter how you may excel in the art of Karate, and in your scholastic endeavors, nothing is more important than your behavior and your humanity as observed in daily life. — Gichin Funakoshi

In karate, hitting, thrusting, and kicking are not the only methods, throwing techniques and pressure against joints are included ... all these techniques should be studied referring to basic kata — Gichin Funakoshi

While you're saving your face, you're losing your ass. — Lyndon B. Johnson

There is no place in contemporary Karate-do 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 Shoto-kan 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-do may pursue and orderly and useful progress into man's future. — Gichin Funakoshi

One whose spirit and mental strength have been strengthened by sparring with a never-say-die attitude should find no challenge too great to handle. One who has undergone long years of physical pain and mental agony to learn one punch, one kick, should be able to face any task, no matter how difficult, and carry it through to the end. A person like this can truly be said to have learned karate. — Gichin Funakoshi

Compared with that of a great artist, the friendliness of a great nobleman, however charming it may be, seems like play-acting, like simulation. Saint-Loup sought to please; Elstir loved to give, to give himself. Everything he possessed, ideas, works, and the rest which he counted for far less, he would have given gladly to anyone who understood him. But, for lack of congenial company, he lived in an unsociable isolation which fashionable people call pose and ill-breeding, the authorities a recalcitrant spirit, his neighbours madness, his family selfishness and pride. — Marcel Proust

Quite pure, quite free of future planning, I mounted
the tangled funeral pyre built for my suffering,
so sure of nothing more to buy for future needs,
while in my heart the stored reserves kept silent. — Rainer Maria Rilke

All the wonders of the Greek civilization heaped together are less wonderful than the single book of Psalms. Greece had all that this world could give her; but the flowers of Paradise blossomed in Palestine alone. — William E. Gladstone

When you look at life think in terms of karate. But remember that karate is not only karate
it is life. — Gichin Funakoshi

There might be a lot of difference between Republicans and Democrats on key social issues like women's rights and health care. But when it comes to taking corporate cash, they're pretty much the same beast. — Moby

Students of any art, including Karate-do must never forget the cultivation of the mind and the body. — Gichin Funakoshi

And what will you do now? You'll collect loves
Like stamps. You've got doubles and no one
Will trade you and you have the damaged ones. — Yehuda Amichai

Put Karate into your everyday living, that is how you will see true beauty. — Gichin Funakoshi

That's the greatest applause that any person will ever receive in their life when it comes from their peers — Andre Agassi

Karate is a technique that permits one to defend himself with his bare hands and fists without weapons. — Gichin Funakoshi

I crave my mom's Sloppy Joes. — Tom Douglas

The ultimate aim of Karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants. — Gichin Funakoshi

And in the afternoon they entered a land - but such a land! A land hung in mourning, darkened by gigantic cypresses, submerged; a land of reptiles, silence, shadow, decay. — George Washington Cable

Think of everyday life as karate training. — Gichin Funakoshi

Karate-do strives internally to train the mind to develop a clear conscience, enabling one to face the world honestly, while externally developing strength to the point where one may overcome even ferocious wild animals. Mind and technique become one in true karate. — Gichin Funakoshi

One of the most striking features of karate is that it may be engaged in by anybody, young or old, strong or weak, male or female. — Gichin Funakoshi

Karate is like boiling water, if you do not heat it constantly, it will cool. — Gichin Funakoshi

Karate is like boiling water: without heat, it returns to it's tepid state — Gichin Funakoshi

It is important that karate can be practiced by the young and old, men and women alike. That is, since there is no need for a special training place, equipment, or an opponent, a flexibility in training is provided such that the physically and spiritually weak individual can develop his body and mind so gradually and naturally that he himself may not even realize his own great progress. — Gichin Funakoshi