Haha

I've just been reading various things about martial arts on the web, it's quite ridiculous how much crap I have to sift through to find meaningful stuff. Half of it is a bunch of con-artists trying to sell "The secrets of the Shaolin temple" or some crap like that, another half is money-hungry dojos aiming for mass-membership and probably not actually being any good, with all kinds of people with hyper-active imaginations and theories about mystical powers and ancient secrets filling in lots of gaps. I blame the Americans for a lot of it, although admittedly it can't all be their fault. After all, the 'Society of Right and Harmonious Fists' thought their awesome gong fu would protect them from bullets, though it didn't work out so well for them during the Boxer Rebellion.
On one random site I did however find one piece of wisdom in the form of a quote. I have no idea who the person it is attributed to is or whether they actually said it, but I like the quote:

"Karate-do aims to build character, improve human behavior, and cultivate modesty; it does not, however, guarantee it."
-Konishi Yasuhiro

The quest for truth is long and difficult.