“Engage in combat fully determined to die and you will be alive; wish to survive in the battle and you will surely meet death.”

—  Uesugi Kenshin

Quoted in Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro; Zen Buddhism and Its Influence on Japanese Culture (1970); p. 188
Cited in Wisdom from Early Japan, The Samurai Archives, 2006-11-07 http://www.samurai-archives.com/wisdom.html,
Cited in [Storry, Richard, October 11, 1979, Cult of the Sword, The New York Review of Books, 26, 15, ISSN 0028-7504, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=7675, 2006-11-07] (Review of several books on the samurai of Japan.)
Alternative: "Those who cling to life die, and those who defy death live."

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Uesugi Kenshin 1
Japanese daimyo 1530–1578

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