"In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success."
- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Navy (1940)
"We have resolved to endure the unendurable and suffer what is insufferable."
- Emperor Hirohito
"In order to conquer the world, we must first conquer China."
-Baron Tanaka, Foreign Minister (Tanaka Memorial)
"To die for the Emperor is to live forever."
- Japanese Army Slogan
"When war comes between Japan and the United States, I shall not be content to merely occupying Guam, the Philipines, Hawaii, and San Francisco. I look forward to dictating the piece of United States in the White House at Washington."
- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Navy
"In blossom today, then scattered:
Life is so like a delicate flower.
How can one expect the fragrance
To last for ever?"
- Admiral Onishi Takijiro (a poem about Kamikaze pilots)
"If they (the young pilots) are on land, they would be bombed down, and if they are in the air, they would be shot down. That's sad...Too sad...To let the young men die beautifully, that's what Tokko is. To give beautiful death, that's called sympathy."
- Admiral Takijiro Onishi (Note: Tokko means suicidal attack in Japanese)
"You must let me do it."
- Captain Yukio Seki (when asked if he desired to participate in the first Kamikaze attack)
"To let this beautiful Japan keep growing, to be released from the wicked hands of the Americans and British, and to build a 'freed Asia' was our goal from the Gakuto Shutsujin year before last; yet nothing has changed."
- Second Lieutenant Shigeyuki Suzuki (member of a Kamikaze squadron)
"A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten."
- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Navy (about Pearl Harbor, 1942)
"Tora, tora, tora!"
- Captain Fuchida Mitsuo (at the attack on Pearl Harbor, 1940) [Note: Tora means tiger in Japanese]
"All men are brothers, like the seas throughout the world; So why do winds and waves clash so fiercely everywhere?"
- Emperor Hirohito (1940)
"Blood for the Emperor! Marine, you die!"
- English slogan for the Japanese soldiers at Guadalcanal (1942)
"The fate of the Empire rests on this enterprise every man must devote himself totally to the task in hand."
- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Navy (December 7, 1940)
"The mindless rejoicing at home is really appalling; it makes me fear that the first blow against Tokyo will make them wilt at once...I only wish that [the Americans] had also had, say, three carriers at Hawaii..."
- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Navy (1942)
"The fruits of victory are tumbling into our mouths too quickly."
- Emperor Hirohito (April 29, 1942; his forty-first birthday)
