Opportunity Never Knocks Twice Quotes

Who can tell? Your living is an organized hell. The mansion of your mind just an oversized cell. The pressure, everything is done to a measure. In the sea of competition sunk like a treasure. Like a feather falling slow spiraling to the floor. Strung up like a broken violin to your course. Opportunity is knocking at your door, But you never left a welcome mat (It doesn't matter anymore.). Or anyhow, but you're too late to turn back. Fate pushing you into the wall like a thumbtack. Ain't no comebacks in this game of life. Roll the dice again, Roll it once, never twice. Keep on going, and taste the stars. Keep on growing, and raise the bar. You're living life for the As down to the Zs, After one drop you got a fountain to seize. Wanna break from the world, but the world wanna break you, The weight makes your backbone curl up and make you.

Opportunity is always under our feet. We don't have to go anywhere. All we need to do is recognize it. When people don't know how to recognize opportunity, they complain of noise when it knocks. The same opportunity never knocks twice. The next one may be better or worse, but it is never the same one.

(20) About “Crushing” （一、ひしぐと云事） To “crush” is to see your opponent as weak and yourself as strong and smashing him to bits. In large-scale strategy, irrespective of their number, the enemy will show their vulnerability if they hesitate or are disoriented. At this point, crush the enemy from the top down. Overwhelm them with a burst of energy as if to push them back and obliterate them. If the crushing blows are insufficient, the enemy may recover. Crush them as if they were in the palm of your hand. Study this well. In the case of individual combat, if your adversary is not skilled or he backs off because his rhythm is disrupted, he must be crushed immediately and given no chance to breathe or look you in the eye. It is crucial that he is not afforded the slightest opportunity to get back on his feet. Learn this well. (21) About “The Mountain-Sea Alternation” （一、さんかいのかわりと云事） The mind of “mountain-sea”14 means that it is perilous to execute the same move three times in a fight. It may be unavoidable to employ a tactic twice but never do it three times. If an attack is unsuccessful, keep applying pressure and try again. If it still has no effect, quickly adapt and change your approach. If your next move doesn’t work, then try another. The mindset underlying this is when the enemy is thinking of “mountain,” attack him as the “sea.” If he is thinking “sea,” take him down as the “mountain.” This is the Way of strategy. Study it exhaustively. (22) About “Knocking the Bottom Out” （一、そこをぬくと云事） What I call “knocking the bottom out” is as follows. You may feel you have succeeded through application of the principles of the Way in battle when, in fact, in his heart the enemy has not yet yielded. On the surface that he is defeated but deep down his spirit is still very much in the fight. When this occurs, replenish your mind and raze the enemy’s spirit by ripping it apart so that he is defeated beyond doubt. Take care to confirm this. “Knocking the bottom out” [of his fighting spirit] can be accomplished by the use of a sword, with the body or with your mind. There is not only one way to achieve this. Once the stuffing has been knocked out of the enemy, there is no need to keep fixed on him. If this is not the case, continue to maintain vigilance. It is difficult to destroy an enemy who still harbors a residual spirit to fight.

Train like a scientist. Even though it may be possible that anyone can make a new scientific discovery, and anyone can win a fight against a professional fighter, the truth of the matter is the odds are against you. In fact, the odds are so unfavorably stacked against you, if you don’t train efficiently and push yourself to the very limits of what the human body and mind can endure, your chances of success are slim at best. While there is nothing new about pushing limits and training hard when it comes to fighting, successful modern fighters are starting to train with skepticism. I still remember the first day of one of my undergraduate physics classes, when the professor said, “Don’t trust me. If you don’t question everything I say here in class, if you don’t go home and check it yourself because you’re skeptical and refuse to take my word for it, then you don’t belong here, and you’re going to have a hard time making it in physics.” I remember it because at first it seemed like the opposite of what a professor should say, but once it sunk in, I realized he was right. Real mastery of physics does not come from memorization and repetition. Real mastery comes from understanding how well the laws of physics hold up when you try your best to break them. The same thing is true in fighting. You will never really master a choke until you have tried to choke out someone who does not want you to succeed at it. During an actual fight, on the street or in the ring, there is far too much chaos for anyone to succeed just by listening in class and repeating techniques. Everyone needs to have some rough personal failures to learn from. Everyone should have that awkward moment when your opponent’s only reaction to your attempted wristlock is a blank stare, and everyone needs to get knocked over once or twice because an opponent kicked right through the perfect block. Of course, sometimes there are techniques we do not have the luxury of testing out, either because they are too dangerous or the opportunities to use them in sparring may not come very often. You can’t learn everything the hard way, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still be a skeptic.