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"On October 18, 1941, I suddenly received a mandate from His Majesty to form a new cabinet. This was completely unexpected, and when I was summoned to the Imperial Palace I thought I would be questioned on the army's point of view."
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"The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave it to him."

"Never underestimate the power of a simple thought."

"I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic'."

"I thought it completely absurd to mention my name in the same breath as the presidency."

"In Socrates' thought the two marks of individual self-consciousness appear; it is practical and it is social."
Explore more quotes by Hideki Tojo

"I would point out that the cultural advance of these people has been suppressed in the past and continues to be suppressed in the present by policies designed to keep them in ignorance."

"However, even during the preparations for action, we laid our plans in such a manner that should there be progress through diplomatic negotiation, we would be well prepared to cancel operations at the latest moment that communication technology would have permitted."

"The main American naval forces were shifted to the Pacific region and an American admiral made a strong declaration to the effect that if war were to break out between Japan and the United States, the Japanese navy could be sunk in a matter of weeks."

"In dealing with the China problem, the British and American side, which had particularly strong interests in China, should have based its judgments about the origins of the problem on direct observation of the actual circumstances at the time."

"With options thus foreclosed, in order to protect and defend the nation and clear the obstacles that stood in its path, a decisive appeal to arms was made."

"When reflecting upon it today, that the Pearl Harbor attack should have succeeded in achieving surprise seems a blessing from Heaven. It was clear that a great American fleet had been concentrated in Pearl Harbor, and we supposed that the state of alert would be very high."

"Therefore, if one were to consider that there was virtually no possibility of success through the US-Japan negotiations, the military and economic pressures would only force Japan into further crisis if time were allowed to pass in vain."

"The reason was the failure of both Japan and China to understand each other and the inability of America and the European powers to sympathize, without prejudice, with the peoples of East Asia."

"Thus, it was to seek true civilization and true justice for all the peoples of the world, and to view this as the destruction of personal freedom and respect is to be assailed by the hatred and emotion of war, and to make hasty judgments."

"From the point of the view of the nation's power, it was obvious that while we were fighting the Sino-Japanese war, every effort was to be made to avoid adding to our enemies and opening additional fronts."
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