Lyoto Machida Quotes

The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy's cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him.

It is a principle of the art of war that one should simply lay down his life and strike. If one's opponent also does the same, it is a even match. Defeating one's opponent is then a matter of faith and destiny.

Numerical superiority is of no consequence. In battle, victory will go to the best tactician."- G. A. Custer

Therefore the good fighter will be terrible in his onset, and prompt in his decision.

FACE A SINGLE FOE as if you are facing ten thousand enemies; face ten thousand enemies as a single foe.

Nothing matures a military force quicker than actual military operations.

You know how you smoke out a sniper? You send a guy out in the open, and you see if he gets shot. They thought that one up at West Point.

I watch mostly every martial arts movie... I really like movies that aren't just martial arts. I like movies that have spiritual meaning behind them, like samurai movies, or movies that have meditation.

Tanks being deployed far forward is an indication of offensive action; tanks in depth is an indication of defensive action.

I started to make a study of the art of war and revolution and, whilst abroad, underwent a course in military training. If there was to be guerrilla warfare, I wanted to be able to stand and fight with my people and to share the hazards of war with them.

I don't feel that emotion is a good thing to have in combat. You must be cold.

General Longstreet,when once in a fight, was a most brilliant soldier; but he was the hardest man to move I had in my army.

A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought… but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.

A warrior carries his shield for the sake of the entire line.

Artillery is more essential to cavalry than to infantry, because cavalry has no fire for its defence, but depends on the sabre.

Thirdly, the gentleman warrior, carrying the weaponry of his way. The way of the warrior is to master the virtue of his weapons. If a gentleman dislikes strategy he will not appreciate the benefit of weaponry, so must he not have a little taste for this?

We never announced a scorched-earth policy; we never announced any policy at all, apart from finding and destroying the enemy, and we proceeded in the most obvious way. We used what was at hand, dropping the greatest volume of explosives in the history of warfare over all the terrain within the thirty-mile sector which fanned out from Khe Sanh. Employing saturation-bombing techniques, we delivered more than 110,000 tons of bombs to those hills during the eleven-week containment of Khe Sanh.

There is but one means to extenuate the effects of enemy fire: it is to develop a more violent fire oneself.

Generals who save troops for the next day are always beaten.

I have always said I am a five-dimensional fighter.

We were lavish of blood in those days, and it was thought to be a grand thing to charge a battery or an earth-work lined with infantry.

When he utilizes combined energy, his fighting men become as it were like unto rolling logs or stones. For it is the nature of a log or stone to remain motionless on level ground, and to move when on a slope; if four-cornered, to come to a standstill, but if round-shaped to go rolling down.

If you were a warrior, you would know that the worst thing one can do is confront human beings directly.

The Way of the warrior does not include other ways, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, certain traditions, artistic accomplishments, and dancing. But even though these are not part of the Way, if you know the Way broadly, you will see it in everything.

When you decide to attack, keep calm and dash in quickly, forestalling the enemy...attack with a feeling of constantly crushing the enemy, from first to last.