On Ryukyu islands, the expert Kara-te practitioners, used their skills to subdue, control and generally teach bullies A lesson, rather than severely injure or kill their attackers. They knew full well the consequences of their actions and the trail of blood and retribution that would ensue.

— Soke Behzad Ahmadi

Karate is not about techniques and their execution, but about boldness, integrity and fight for justice and common good.

— Soke Behzad Ahmadi

There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle... Perhaps...

— Jean-Pierre Melville

Did not Socrates, all the while he unflinchingly refused to concede one iota of loyalty to his daemon, obey with equal fidelity and equanimity the command of his earthly master, the State? His conscience he followed, alive; his country he served, dying. Alack the day when a state grows so powerful as to demand of its citizens the dictates of their consciences!

— Inazo Nitobe

Being a samurai is all about selfless service and if the lord abuses the servant, it is no longer a situation of service; it becomes the situation of a victim. It is never acceptable for a samurai to be a victim. It is never acceptable to allow a lord to abuse you or rob you of your dignity. In such a situation, it is acceptable to walk away.

— Alexei Maxim Russell

The warrior guided by the spirit serves humanity, the warrior without, serves the ego.

— Soke Behzad Ahmadi

True Martial Arts is universal, simple and practical. Anything else is too complex to be used in combat.

— Soke Behzad Ahmadi

A karate practitioner should possess two things : wicked hands, and Buddha's heart.

— Soke Behzad Ahmadi

Bushido is realized in the presence of death. This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. There is no other reasoning.

— Tsunetomo Yamamoto

A truly brave man is ever serene; he is never taken by surprise; nothing ruffles the equanimity of his spirit. In the heat of battle he remains cool; in the midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind. Earthquakes do not shake him, he laughs at storms. We admire him as truly great, who, in the menacing presence of danger or death, retains his self-possession; who, for instance, can compose a poem under impending peril or hum a strain in the face of death. Such indulgence betraying no tremor in the writing or in the voice, is taken as an infallible index of a large nature—of what we call a capacious mind (Yoyū), which, far from being pressed or crowded, has always room for something more.

— Inazo Nitobe