Counsel to Myself, Volume 2

How should we judge another person, respond to kindness, or reconcile private ambition with the common good? In the second volume of Counsel to Myself, Nitobe Inazō turns these questions into a wide-ranging conversation about the habits that shape a life.

His examples move between Japanese history, Chinese philosophy, Western literature, business, schools, and ordinary encounters. Gratitude becomes a discipline of attention; feeling can either nourish action or obstruct judgment. Discussions of work and vocation lead toward an unusual closing inquiry into sleep, dreams, and the possibility of knowing oneself more honestly.

Nitobe, the Japanese educator and internationalist best known for Bushido, writes with the confidence and contradictions of his era. His historical assumptions remain visible beside his appeals to generosity, independence, and self-examination. This new English translation preserves the supplied second division in full, including its poems, anecdotes, quotations, and final meditation, with brief explanatory notes.