I love pithy quotes: in just a few short words they can encapsulate an entire strategy, philosophy, or approach to life. That’s why more than 10 years ago I published a short article with some of my favourite grappling and martial arts quotes.

Well, I’ve come across a lot more great quotes in the last decade!

I typically share the new quotations I discover on my Twitter and/or Instagram accounts, but for the people who mostly read my blog and newsletter I thought I would collate my recent favourite additions so they’re all in one place…

Hopefully you enjoy them as much as I do.

And if you have your own favorite martial arts quote (or quotes) please share it with the rest of us in the comments section at the bottom of this article!

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results”

Sir Winston Churchill

“You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war”

Napoleon Bonaparte

“A good battle plan that you act on today can be better than a perfect one tomorrow.”

General George S. Patton

“The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat”

Richard Marcinko

“On the day of victory no fatigue is felt”

German Proverb

A photo posted by Stephan Kesting (@stephan_kesting) on Apr 1, 2016 at 12:08pm PDT

“Good judgement is the result of experience, and experience the result of bad judgement”

Mark Twain

“Call no man happy till he is dead”

Aeschylus, Ancient Greek playwright

“Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes”

Gautama B.

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop”

Confucius

“Overnight success feels great after playing 10 years in honky-tonks behind chicken wire”

Willie Nelson

“For how can a man die better

Than facing fearful odds

Defending the ashes of his father

And the temple of the gods?”

TB MacCauley

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Winston Churchill

A photo posted by Stephan Kesting (@stephan_kesting) on Feb 25, 2016 at 2:27pm PST

“In the struggle between the stone and water, in time, the water wins”

Japanese Proverb

“In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell.”

Jack Welch

“There is no comfort in the growth zone and no growth in the comfort zone”

Unknown

“Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you”

Gypsy saying

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”

Napoleon Bonaparte.

“When it comes to performance standards, It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate”

Jocko Willink

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times”

Bruce Lee

“In great and dangerous operations one must not think but act”

Julius Caesar

A photo posted by Stephan Kesting (@stephan_kesting) on Feb 19, 2016 at 7:12pm PST



“Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick”

Bruce Lee

“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Mark Twain

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle you know nothing about. Always.”

Various authors attributed

“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”

Decouvertes

A photo posted by Stephan Kesting (@stephan_kesting) on Feb 19, 2016 at 4:17pm PST

“Heroism is endurance for one moment more”

George F. Kennan

“The tragedy of life lies not in not reaching your goals, but in having no goals to reach”

Benjamin Elijah Mays

“Walk on road, hm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later – Squish!

Mr Miyagi, Karate Kid

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

Winston Churchill

“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body”

Seneca

“In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.”

G.R.R. Martin

“I have had as many doubts as anyone else. Standing on the starting line, we’re all cowards.”

Alberto Salazar

“Not less than two hours a day should be devoted to exercise.”

Thomas Jefferson

Has anyone ever shared the true secret of success any more eloquently? #longfellow #wordstostriveby pic.twitter.com/KCxPpghenb — StephanKesting (@StephanKesting) November 23, 2015

“The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained in sudden flight

But, they while their companions slept, they were toiling upwards in the night”

Longfellow

“Learning defense improves the attack. If the lion knows how the prey can escape, it’ll capture it in a much more precise way”

Rillion Gracie

“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages , bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful”

Earnest Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition Advertisement

“How many things apparently impossible have nevertheless been performed by resolute men who had no alternative but death.”

Napoleon

“Fall down 7 times, get up 8 times.”

Japanese maxim

A photo posted by Stephan Kesting (@stephan_kesting) on Sep 24, 2015 at 3:21pm PDT



“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Teddy Rosevelt

“Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second”

William James

“If size mattered then the elephant would be king of the jungle”

Rickson Gracie

“This game is ninety percent mental, the other half of physical”

Yogi Berra

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started”

Mark Twain

“Only a fool does something new and thinks it will work for sure. Only a failure refuses to try something that might not work”

Seth Godin

A photo posted by Stephan Kesting (@stephan_kesting) on Oct 13, 2015 at 6:12pm PDT

“Force has no place where there is need of skill”

Herodotus

“Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.”

Henri-Louis Bergson

“No plan of action ever survives contact with the enemy”

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

“If you’re going through hell, keep going!”

Winston Churchill

Please share your own favourite quotes in the comments section below. I would love to read them! — Stephan Kesting

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