“Karate begins and ends with courtesy.” – Gichin Funakoshi

“The ultimate aim of karate lies not in victory nor defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants.” – Gichin Funakoshi

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

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

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

“Karate is a defensive art from beginning to end.” – 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

“Once a kata has been learned, it must be practiced repeatedly until it can be applied in an emergency, for knowledge of just the sequence of a form in Karate is useless.” – Gichin Funakoshi

“In the past, it was expected that about three years were required to learn a single kata, and usually even an expert of considerable skill would only know three, or at most five, kata.” – Gichin Funakoshi